Faint Premonition
by Beth Weasley
Summary: She has strange dreams, but even when she can't remember them, she lets them guide her life. Because she's learned that not listening can kill, and it's not always her own life on the line. Major rewrite of Premonition.
1. Chapter 1

Wow. It's been a while... I've been working hard on the rewrites of my 'Seer' series, and finally, the first chapter is ready! Thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted the originals, and much thanks to Vince and Lynx for checking things over for me. I'll be posting a chapter a week, to give people time to let me know what they think, instead of one huge dump, so please review, and enjoy the fic!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter One**

I woke up to find a half-packed duffel on the bed in front of me and a package of emergency rations in my hand.

"Not again." Tossing the food onto the rumpled covers, I rubbed at my temples. At least it explained the antsy feeling I'd been having for the last few weeks. Even the Sergeants who ran the local dojo had commented on it. I dumped the bag to examine the contents, and then sat on the floor with a miserable sigh.

It was all desert survival gear, and for multiple people. Still, the nagging sensation that I didn't actually _have_ everything that would be needed prodded me into action. First order of business was to call my boss.

A pillowcase-creased, half-asleep face appeared on my comm screen, yawning. "'Sup, 'Leen?" With a scowl, I stomped on my usual response to that particular shortening of my name. "You been letting birds into your place?" Startled by the question, I ran a hand through my short, dark blonde locks and encountered several knots.

"You don't look much better." Jamie responded to my retort by pointing toward the corner of the screen and the time stamp there. Six thirty in the morning. No wonder I felt like shit. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Just had an extremely strong one. I was putting together an emergency kit for several people."

"Damn." He knew about my hunches and the rare occasions when I did something in my sleep and woke up partway through. He wasn't just my boss, but also my best friend and the closest thing to family that I had left. The redhead knew all my secrets. "We can spare you at the office for a while. As long as you keep cracking open gems like the Carver case, even Mr. Trent won't care."

I smiled a bit, remembering. Our client, the defendant, had faced charges for the torture and murder of her husband and daughter; it took three months for me to get my hands on the police's crime scene evidence and footage. In the end, Mrs. Carver had walked, and the neighbor who had accused her was convicted.

Shaking myself back into the present, I looked steadily at the lead lawyer for the Icarus branch office. "It feels like the shit's gonna hit the fan. God only knows how long I'll be away."

"Lives in the balance?" I nodded solemnly at my pseudo-brother's guess. "Then you _have_ to go. I'll cover for you, you know that. But I want to hear from you whenever you get the chance."

"Of course." As if I'd leave him in the dark on purpose. "I think I have enough time to get properly outfitted, though." Then I smirked. "Don't miss me too much, Cartwright."

"Every damned minute, Bergenhaus." The familiar exchange lightened his countenance. "If you get any more information on where you're going, let me know." With a nod, I cut the data connection and headed for the single bathroom in my small apartment.

Once the hot water had pounded the tension out of my muscles, I dried off and sat on my bed, legs folded in the lotus position. The pen and pad of paper in front of me would permit my subconscious to convey what I needed to take, and hopefully how long I had to get it all together. It was a risky process, though; if I sank too deeply into the meditative state, I'd have to fight to regain conscious control of my body.

I 'zoned out,' as Sergeant Callahan had once called it, for two hours, and then spent another hour examining the packing list. What I read twisted my back into knots again and made my gut roil. Terror ran through me, an eerie echo of what I'd seen in my sleep but couldn't remember.

Much of the list I could get easily, but I'd need the help of my martial arts instructors for a few things. Drift and Callahan had been in the Company for several years and taught SpecOps soldiers before quitting and setting up their dojo on Icarus Station. They stayed in touch with their former comrades, though, and could get a surprising variety of military-grade equipment. The rifle they kept for me in the private salon's safe was just one example.

The assortment of blades I needed to get out of my arsenal locker there didn't bother me. The medical kit did. The idea that I might have to deal with battlefield-type injuries worried the hell out of me. I couldn't be sure my training was up to it, though Drift assured me I was good.

Eleven pairs of polarized sunglasses, two sized for young teenagers and two for older teens, posed no problem, nor did the high-SPF sunscreen; easily purchased from an outdoor-adventure outfitter I knew of. And they'd probably have the oxygen capsules, water jug, and canteens. But the twelfth pair needed to be as dark as my own shades, and strung on an elastic strap. Thankfully, I could order them from my usual optometrist and have them in twenty-four hours. They'd dealt with my light-sensitive eyes for years.

There was no question whether I'd take my rifle; it had been equipped with a bio-lock coded to me and the Sergeants, and no one else would be able to fire it. A pistol would join it, and as many clips of ammo as I could wheedle out of my instructors. Some of the blades I'd bought piecemeal over the last couple of years were listed specifically, and I could pick and choose a few more.

Over a year earlier, I'd bought a pair of interestingly-shaped knives that Sergeant Drift called 'swingblades.' I couldn't use them, though, the grips far too big for my hands and almost too big for either of my _sensei_s. But they _could_ handle them well enough to teach me how to defend against the razor edges that covered the wielder's knuckles and the viciously serrated curves between blades and grips.

No matter what they threw at me, my preferred style of twinned long daggers, held in a reverse grip so they laid against my arms, could withstand their worst assaults after a few initial sessions that gave me an idea of how the 'brass knuckles with a bad attitude,' as I called them, worked. A typical lesson pattern, though, and Sergeant Callahan was constantly searching for new ways to challenge me. Both of my instructors considered me the second-best student they'd ever had, behind a man who'd been tapped for SpecOps during their last year with the Company. They didn't talk about him much, so I figured 'Rick' had gotten killed somewhere along the line.

Interestingly enough, Drift already had a field medic's kit to hand, and drilled me for two hours before he was satisfied that I knew what to do with each item inside it. I hated the idea that Anestaphine might prove necessary. The drug was formulated to give the fatally injured a few minutes without pain before delivering a swift and supposedly painless end. Used on a healthy person, though, it caused a slow and agonizing death. I didn't want it to be used in either way if I could avoid it.

It took me two days to get everything on the list and pack it into two duffel bags. With each hour that passed, the urge to get going ratcheted a little higher. I locked up my Spartan flat and headed for the Icarus Station spacedocks.


	2. Chapter 2

I know, I know, Chapter One seems like an awfully slow start. But it's about to ramp up, big-time, so stay tuned! Much thanks to DarkDreamer1982 and Lady NeverAfterNon for their reviews, and to forestreject and noldoen for adding this to their favorites and alerts!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Two**

Though it is by no means a tourist attraction, Icarus Station deals with a lot of space traffic. It's the only refueling, reloading, and transfer center between the Conga system and the Tangiers system, along one of the major routes spanning the length of the Orion Arm. Few civilian vessels have the fuel capacity to go straight through and skip the station.

That meant, of course, that almost every one of the multitude of berths was occupied at any given moment, and the promenades swarmed with people.

I had to practically fight my way through the crowd, following the half-sensed pull of my subconscious. The terror was building inside me again, a fear born from knowing that death was staring me in the eyes. But it wasn't _my_ emotion, and it wasn't happening yet. So I moved faster, still unable to fall into the long, swinging stride that was my preferred walking pace.

When I finally got into a more open area, I very nearly panicked. Two dockworkers wielding blowtorches were just sealing an exterior hatch, and my heart clenched until I spotted another one still wide open toward the bay door. The ship showed wear and tear, battered from years of service. An older pod-style hauler, a type that didn't often carry passengers anymore because newer ships were faster, and you spent less time in cryosleep. My heavy sigh—both of relief that I'd arrived in time and resignation that I'd be going through the ordeal that was cryo for me—got the attention of the two men.

"At least you haven't locked everyone in yet." The hearty chuckles nearly masked the sound of approaching high heels. Anyone with normal hearing would have missed it entirely.

"May I take your ticket, please?" The woman wore a uniform consisting of a too-tight blouse and a too-short skirt. She even held her tablet up to her chest like a shield.

"Don't have one, but I can pay for my passage." Setting down one of my unremarkable bags, I rummaged in a pocket. Other small objects kept me from finding the flat, rectangular bank card right away. She snatched it from my hand, ran it through the reader on the digital clipboard, and then cracked a little smile as she handed it back.

"Thank you for choosing New Oslo and Alliance Shipping. One of these… gentlemen will find you a cryo-locker and get you and your belongings secured for your trip." The moment she finished speaking, she turned and vanished into the crowd outside.

"I think there's one locker still open." One of the men pushed up his welding mask to look me up and down. I could almost see him mentally measuring and estimating how much space I needed. Then he nodded toward the other hatch and began walking, with me tagging along like a child.

We entered at the rear of the passenger pod, and I scanned faces as I moved forward. Who would survive? The heavyset man with Irish features? The dark-skinned man in Muslim robes and the three browned boys lined up beside him? The skinny, balding fellow with the old-fashioned corrective glasses? The pair of prospectors?

I paused momentarily, looking at another kid. The clothes said boy, but the slightly elfin features told me otherwise. No Adam's Apple, either. A sound tactic, in principle; young boys traveling alone were less likely to come to harm than young girls.

Shaking my head, I caught up with the dockworker just as he reached the forward bulkhead. A heavily reinforced locker had been retrofitted into the space, shoving the last chamber tightly against the wall. The large door bore a warning: 'No Early Release.'

The man trapped inside needed the large space. Having his hands and feet bound to the sides and floor with thick manacles and chains apparently didn't suffice to hold him. He'd also been blindfolded and fitted with a device known as a horse-bit, which was precisely what it sounded like. With his face half obscured and mouth distorted, I couldn't tell who he was. And when his lightly stubbled head turned just a little toward me and his nostrils flared, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Everyone else appeared to be deep in cryosleep, so how could he possibly move?

A glance over my shoulder put me almost face-to-face with the person who had probably caught him. Tall, blond, wearing a dark blue uniform and a shiny badge, he _looked_ like a legitimate officer of the law, a poster boy for them, even. But I knew that no sane cop would put a criminal on a transport with civilians. He had to be a bounty hunter, a merc. I scowled as I stepped into the vacant locker next to the prisoner, strapping myself in tightly. My duffels fit nicely on either side of my legs, and I lowered my eyelids as chemicals entered my bloodstream. Not all the way closed, just far enough that my lashes would shield my eyes.

"All exterior hatches sealed, sir." With my vision essentially disabled, my other senses worked even more strongly than usual. My hearing easily picked up the woman's voice. "Port Control has cleared us for launch."

"Take us out, Pilot." This time, the male voice bore clipped tones, every sound pared to its shortest understandable length. He sounded like a career spacer.

"Aye aye, Captain." Vibration built all around me and continued for several minutes.

"Course plotted and locked in, sir." A younger man's voice, probably the navigator.

"Initiate auto-pilot and lock down." The pitch of the engines shifted into my range of hearing, and heavy footsteps echoed from the command module. "No fooling around this time. We don't have enough spare atmosphere for you to waste it on personal affairs." I raised a mental eyebrow; it was an interesting way to dress down a crew for making time while the rest of the ship was on ice.

"Yes, sir." The woman sounded like she wanted to sulk, but knew she wouldn't be allowed to, while the navigator was all business. One hiss signaled that the captain's locker had closed, and two more followed soon after.

The vessel sailed into the black, the hum of its engines all that kept it from being as silent as a tomb.

One Locker Over

_They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep, all but th' primitive side. Th' animal side._

_No wonder I'm still awake._

_Transportin' me with civilians. Sounded like forty, forty-plus. Heard an Arab voice, some hoodoo holy man. Probably on his way to New Mecca._

_But what route? What route?_

_Smelled a woman. Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type. Free settlers, an' they only take the back roads._

_Th' other woman, though, th' last to board… Ain't never caught her scent before, but it's so fuckin' familiar. Well-worn combat boots she must've gotten surplus; th' Company ain't big on girl soldiers. Gotta learn more about her…_

_And here's my real problem: Mr. Johns, the blue-eyed devil. Plannin' on takin' me back to slam, but this time Johns picked a ghost lane. A long time between stops._

_A long time for somethin' to go wrong._


	3. Chapter 3

Well, another week, another chapter. Thanks, DarkDreamer1952, for reviewing again. And thanks to Rmeyer90 for adding this to your favorites. And everyone else... Shame on you! I ask politely for feedback, and get nothing. *pouts* But maybe this chapter will help; it's just over twice the size of each of the previous chapters, and we start getting into the real action. Some info on Eileen's background here, too. Please, please let me know what you think!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Three**

My mind wandered, sifting through my memories. I hate cryosleep, because I _don't_ sleep. Sure, my body may be at rest, but I'm still fully conscious.

I'd done cryo twice before, on my way to and from Granmoor College. After the first bout, I'd called my adoptive parents and let them know I wouldn't be coming home until I had my degree. Instead, they and Jamie had taken the time to come see me.

My best friend's first visit had involved a confession; I'd killed a man with nothing but a stylus. He'd jumped me after dark, muttering his plans to rape and murder me into my ear when he thought he had me helpless. Hell, _I'd_ thought I was helpless until I struck with the blunted tip of the writestick, driving it through his trachea. Then, with the scumbag on the ground, I'd deliberately pierced his carotid artery, allowing him the swift death he wouldn't have given to me.

Afterwards, I'd dumped the corpse in the river and returned to my dorm room. Never had a single nightmare over it, oddly, but it had been a matter of survival. Jamie said the same thing when I told him, then never raised the subject again. And my later class on motives and ethics—a required course for criminology majors—had reassured me that I was in the right.

Twenty-two weeks had passed so far, according to my internal clock. The engines had quieted a few days into the trip, and the only thing keeping me sane was the faint scent coming from the chamber next to me; richly masculine, with a coppery undertone like that of human blood. I knew I'd never met the man before, but knowing he was right next to me was strangely soothing.

_Ping-zip-ping!_

_Ping-zip-ping!_

The unexpected sounds jolted me into full awareness of my surroundings, but it didn't produce anywhere near enough adrenaline to clear the chemicals out of my body. Immobile, trapped, I could only observe while things went to hell in a hand-basket.

_Ping-zip-__**thwack**__-ping!_

I heard two distinct hisses, followed by the sounds of two people hitting the deck.

"Why did I fall on you?" The navigator's voice was a little shrill, panicked.

"He's dead." Shock laced the pilot's statement. "Captain's dead. _Christ_, I was looking right at him when—" The cryo-juice being fed into my bloodstream began to ebb, and I attempted to speed up my heart rate through sheer willpower.

"The chrono shows we're twenty-two weeks out. Gravity wasn't supposed to kick in for another nineteen. _Why did I fall at all?_"

"Did you hear what I said!" Feet scrabbled against the decking. "Captain's _dead_! Owens, too!"

_What the fuck? There were only three of them to start with, now two are talking and two are dead?_

"Oh, no. Not Owens, not…" A moment's pause. "Wait, wait, wait. _I'm Owens_. Right?"

"Cryosleep." The pilot put as much disgust into the word as I felt. "Swear to God, it sloughs brain cells." Footsteps resonated as Owens and the pilot moved around. "Fifteen-fifty millibars, dropping twenty MB per minute… _Shit_, we're hemorrhaging air. _Something_ took a swipe at us."

"Just tell me we're still in the shipping lanes." It sounded like a prayer. "Just show me all those stars, all those bright, beautiful, deep-spa—" Owens broke off in mid-word. Only a crash between us and the desert I was prepared for.

"Jesus God." The ship began to shudder, and I heard someone climb a ladder at speed.

"They trained you for this, right?" Silence, at least of the human sort, answered him. "Fry? _Fry?_" A faint howling began, accompanied by metallic snaps. Atmosphere, generating enough friction to rip away any external arrays.

"… Crisis program selected Number Two of this system because it shows at least _some_ oxygen and more than fifteen hundred—" Shrieking alarms overwhelmed the man's data regurgitation. "Would you _SHUT THE FUCK UP!_" A loud thump quieted them abruptly. "— more than fifteen hundred millibars of pressure at surface level. Okay, so maybe the ship did something right for a change." The statement was… less than reassuring.

A series of small explosions sounded from the aft end of the vessel, and I had to choke down nausea as the gravity of the planet seemed to move. Whatever blew had sent us into a roll.

"What the… Was that a purge?"

"Too heavy in the ass! Can't get my fucking nose down!" I no longer needed to _try_ to get my heart beating faster; it was hammering at my ribs. Mechanical thumps were followed by a return to a relatively normal gravitational position.

"Showing no major water bodies." Owens picked up his monologue. "Maximum terrain two hundred twenty meters over mean surface. Largely cinder and gypsum with some evaporate deposits." Another set of explosions leveled the ship out a bit, but I could tell we were still going to hit stern first.

A loud hiss snapped my eyes open and to my left. The airlock to the command module began to close at a snail's pace. I struggled, but could barely turn my head. Everything below my neck was still paralyzed by the cryo-locker's chemical cocktail.

_Fuck, no. No. Can't lose the main cabin. Goddammit, Fry, we need what you've got in there!_

Precisely what we needed, I didn't know. But without that pod, every person in the passenger section was worse than dead.

"Fry, what are you doing?" Suspicion entered the navigator's voice. "Fry? Answer, goddammit!"

"Can't get my nose down! Too much load back there!"

_Fucking BITCH! And me unable to do a goddamn thing…_

"You mean that 'load' of passengers? Is that what you mean, Fry?"

"So what, we should both go down, too? Out of sheer fucking _nobility_? I don't think so."

Motion to my right. Somehow, the merc had gotten his chamber set to revive him first after the crew. He wiped condensation off the inside of the clear door panel, and then peered across the walkway at his prisoner. I froze. Him seeing me moving would be Not Good.

The ship _bounced_ on an odd air current, launching the blond up to knock his head on the top of the chamber, then slamming him back down onto his feet. Hadn't strapped himself in well, if at all, which was a typically stupid merc thing to do. A thread of amusement entered my neighbor's scent.

_He's as aware of what's going on as I am…_

"Look, Fry, company says _we're responsible_ for every one of those—"

"Company's not here, is it? I _tried_ everything else and still got no horizon!"

"Well you'd better _try_ everything twice, 'cause no way do we just flush—"

"If you know something I don't, get your ass up here and take this chair, Owens!"

"When the Captain went down, you stepped up, like it or not!" The finality of the statement seemed to end the lovers' spat. "Now, they train you for this, so—"

"And there wasn't a simulated cockroach alive within fifty klicks of the simulated crash site! _That's_ how they train you! On a _fucking simulator!_"

"Fry…" A deadly earnest warning. "Don't touch that handle!" Feet scrambled for the first time since the pilot went topside. The ship began to yaw, wagging like a dog's tail, but hands appeared in the shrinking airlock, holding a wrench that had to be as long as my thighbone. Within seconds, the inside edges of the doors had settled into the open crescents, jamming it open.

"_Owens!_" I grinned at the frustrated scream.

"Seventy seconds! You still got seventy seconds to level this beast out." Knowing that he'd get whatever the passengers got seemed to calm the man in a way nothing else had so far. When a fourth mechanical thump vibrated through the hull, things began to even out, but there was more shuddering than before. More surface area to be battered by unknown air currents.

Metal squealed, and I heard a crash as something hit a viewport. The merc managed to grab the emergency release for his cryo-chamber, and the vessel lurched, hurling him out of it. Another violent heave rolled the blond back that way. He latched onto one of the heavy rib members milliseconds before the starboard hull peeled away, taking his locker with it. I flinched, closing my eyes against the sudden glare.

The tortured structure screeched one last time, and the section I was in came to such an abrupt halt that black spots danced across the backs of my eyelids. My locker door popped open a little bit, and I cracked my eyes to peer through the lashes. The stop had turned the pod just enough to keep it mostly shaded, though the narrow gap between hull and ground was painfully bright.

Releasing the crash webbing that had probably kept me from scrambling my brains, I tumbled through the plexiglas to land on dirt, my duffels thumping down on either side, biometric locks still blinking their red 'closed' indicators. My sunglasses were the first thing I reached for, mercifully unharmed. Then I rolled onto my back and looked up at the sophisticated box that could so easily have become my coffin. I didn't want to think about how many had died already.

When I heard others moving around, calling in a mixture of English and Arabic, I climbed to my feet and heaved one bag onto my shoulder. The effort left me gasping, and part of my mind noted that the air here was short on oxygen. Why I hadn't needed to buy breathers to go with the package of capsules in my supplies puzzled me, but I knew I'd find out why sooner or later. The second duffel was relegated to being dragged behind me as I went in search of the people I could hear.

As I passed the collapsed blond, it was obvious that he was still breathing, though a line of blood trickled from at least one ear. I scuffed a boot through the sandy grit that had entered during the wreck, adding thickness to the layer of yellowish dust already covering him. But his prisoner had vanished, leaving behind a snapped U-bolt at the bottom of the 'secure' locker and broken chains that had secured his manacles to the chamber's walls. I could still smell him, at least, though it was too diffuse to give me a location.

"_Please_ get rid of the airhead cop wannabe." My voice was just a whisper. I couldn't be sure if the deep but equally quiet chuckle that followed was anything more than my imagination.

The pod was in terrible shape, warped and twisted almost out of recognition by the forced landing. Rounding a sharp bend, I stared. The deck was canted nearly sixty degrees off level, and an entire cluster of cryo-chambers had been torn from their mountings, ending the wild ride in a haphazard pile. Several passengers had been able to get out on their own and were trying to free the trapped ones.

The female prospector had gotten a cutting torch from somewhere and was opening the back of one locker as I arrived. I moved to help pull the metal back, but her partner and the Muslim man beat me to the punch. A quick look around showed the three Muslim boys and the balding man seated in various places and panting in an effort to supply their lungs with enough oxygen.

"Something went wrong, huh?" The girl had been in the inverted locker. I was a bit surprised that she'd modulated her voice, lowering the pitch so she _sounded_ like a boy, too. She was either a very good actor or had practice pulling that trick.

I did a quick mental count, including the merc's payday even though I hadn't seen him, and came up two short of the thirteen survivors I was expecting. There had to be others alive. No one in this group had been seriously hurt, either—just bumps and bruises—so I trudged back toward the gaping hole at the newly-formed corner and got outside to look around.

By some miracle, the cargo pod had come to ground about five hundred meters away. Stars only knew what was in there that could be useful. The command module was a dozen meters beyond the bow end of the passenger section, and I figured that was as good a place as any to look for the living. Even if the entire rear bulkhead appeared to have been torn away.

The 'cop' had apparently gotten there first, emerging from the smaller of the two holes in the mangled section. Trailing in his wake was a petite blonde woman in a very dirty blue shipsuit. Her eyes were wide and blank with shock.

"Are there any others, Johns?" I half-recognized the name and set a portion of my mind to figuring out who he was.

"Twelve, counting you," I called. The woman jumped a bit. Presumably, she was Fry, and I didn't really feel a whole lot of sympathy for her.

A moment later, she stopped and changed direction to head for the larger part of the pod in a hurried shuffle. Debris filled half of it, and Fry started flinging pieces out of her way as I followed her in, digging for something. I hesitated, but the scent of blood prompted me to join her. Owens was probably in there somewhere, and he was hurt.

Letting my nose guide me, I uncovered the back of a chair with an odd bulge in the metal. The two of us pulled on it and found the man—strapped in, with a piece of electrical conduit through his chest. The blonde audibly swallowed a sob and reached out to touch the dead man's cheek.

"… Out, out, out! GET IT OUTTA ME!" I flinched away at the sudden yell, then scrambled toward my bags. Eight figures cast shadows from the torn bulkhead and babbled suggestions.

"Pull it out of him."

"No, it's too close to the heart."

"You gotta do it, just do it fast." The pilot put out a hand to grab the metal.

"Don't touch it!" She nearly leapt out of her skin, pulling her hand back toward her chest like it'd been burned. "Don't touch that handle!" Her gray eyes flicked up to my shades. I only cocked an eyebrow in response, letting her wonder whether or not I knew what Owens' words meant.

"You'll kill him, I'm tellin' you."

"Shit, just leave him alone!"

"Delirious."

"Don'cha got some drugs for the poor man?"

"All right, all _right_…" Fry collected herself. "Okay, somebody—there's Anestaphine in the med locker in the back of the cabin." As she spoke, I retrieved Drift's kit and popped it open.

"Not anymore, there's not."

"Here." I held out one of the pre-filled, labeled syringes, and she accepted it with a grateful look I ignored. I'd gotten it out for the man who saved thirteen lives and was losing his own, not for her. Closing the case back up, I returned it to my duffel and stood. The scents of fear and pain ebbed.

"Get out," the smaller woman rasped. "Everyone." The small crowd dispersed as quickly as it had gathered, except for the girl. She had frozen up in horrified fascination, and I had to put myself between her and the scene before she moved at all. Then she looked down and shuddered as she turned away.

Most of them, I found, had migrated to the top of the passenger section. As tired as I was, I dragged myself and my bags up to join them. Then I sat, legs dangling over the edge where the hull had been torn away, and surveyed the smoking trail of debris.

Somewhere out there, my thirteenth survivor waited, possibly injured.

"Anyone else having breathing problems?" I winced slightly at the whine in the weedy little man's New British accent. "Aside from me?"

"Feel like I just ran or somethin'."

"Yeah, I feel one lung short." The free settler appeared rather attractive in the orangeish light from the twin red and yellow suns, with long, dark hair, pale emerald eyes, and a way of moving that said she enjoyed being admired. Not that I swing that way. Her New Australian accent carried a rough-around-the-edges quality. "All of us."

"I've got O2 capsules, but no breathers." My offer was met with a silence that held for a few minutes. But they were nine people trying to process an unexpected predicament. Not a _complete_ surprise for me, but I hadn't known any specifics until now. The particulars of what we would face before getting off the barren rock of a world were still a mystery to me, especially with the weapons packed in one bag. Then Fry trudged up, a defeated slump to her shoulders and blood on her shipsuit.

"There was talk of a party looking for other survivors, but then we saw this."

"Should at least try to do some scrounging, see what we can find that'll be useful." I wasn't about to give up on that last man or woman. The stocky prospector shot me a thoughtful look.

"What the bloody hell happened?"

"Could have been a… a meteor storm, a rogue comet, maybe. I don't know." At least the pilot would admit that much.

"Well, _I_, for one, am thoroughly fucking grateful. This beast wasn't made to land like this, but I think you did well."

_Two-thirds of the crew and nearly three-quarters of the passengers dead, and she DID WELL?_

I huffed quietly in frustration.

"C'mon, you lousy ingrates, the only reason we're alive is 'cause of her." At that, I actually snorted. The real hero was poor Owens.

"I s'pose you're right. Thanks very much." The other free settler didn't sound terribly enthusiastic.

"Yeah, thanks for saving our dicks." I turned my laugh into a cough, both to spare the girl's feelings and to hide that I knew her secret.

The spire-covered hill to the right of the wreckage drew my attention as an uneasy feeling settled into my gut. A glance at the suns seared my eyes even through my heavily polarized shades, and I quickly averted my gaze to focus on the debris field. Time to rally the troops for a search-and-rescue.

"So are we just gonna sit here and wait for rescue?"

"I don't think that's a good idea." I twisted around to face the kid. "Too exposed out here. Ideally, we want somewhere with shade and a water source, at the very least. I've got some water in my bags, and some other stuff that might help, but it won't last long, not with this many of us." Then I paused. "I really do think we need to check some of this mess, see if there's anything we can use."

"Oh, for Christ's sake. Forget the wreckage already, woman!" I scowled at Johns, knowing that a mere glare would go completely unseen.

"She's right." The brunette crossed her arms over her chest. "There's a lot can survive a high-velocity crash. We're gonna need every possible resource to get outta here, and not checking cheats us outta those resources."


	4. Chapter 4

Yay! Four reviews this week! Thanks to forestreject, DarkDreamer1982, Rmeyer90, and Nelle07 for your comments, and thanks to Dark Alana, Rmeyer90, and Nelle07 for adding this to your favorites and/or alerts. We're starting to get into the real meat of the story here, and I hope to surprise you with a few tidbits that are in here. As usual, please drop me a line, let me know what you think, even constructive criticism is welcome. Trying to be a bit quick, as it's thunderstorming outside like nobody's business, and I don't want to lose power in the middle of posting. Until next week!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Four**

I considered simply dropping to the ground from my perch on the hull. A lot of small, jagged bits of the ship littered the ground there, though, so I followed the others instead. The kid noticed me dragging my bags along and slowed down.

"Lemme help." She tried the duffel with my weapons first, her eyes nearly popping out when she could barely move it. I smiled sheepishly and offered her the straps of the other one.

"Sorry, this one's got all the hardware." She frowned, but hefted the lighter bag and started to catch up. With a grunt, I copied her.

Fry and Johns had stopped just inside the pod, right against the bend, and were having a quiet, intense conversation as the girl and I approached. I listened in avidly; it's fun having extra-sharp ears when no one else around knows about them.

"He just escaped from a maximum-security prison."

"So do we just keep him locked up forever?"

"Well, that would be _my_ choice."

"Is he _really_ that dangerous?"

"Only around humans."

I nearly laughed aloud, and just managed to squash the grin that wanted to break out across my face. Only one man fit the appearance I'd noticed when boarding and the characteristics the merc had just sketched out: the infamous Richard B. Riddick. And only one merc was crazy enough to try moving the man on anything but their own personal ship: William "The Conqueror" Johns. A genuine Grade-A asshole if ever there was one.

Someone had started a pool at the Icarus branch of Meyer, Meyer, and Trent on how long Riddick would let Johns chase him before turning around and putting the former MP out of our misery. I hadn't chipped in, but I knew Jamie had, and he hadn't told me what he'd put his money on. The blond bounty hunter didn't seem to care who got trampled in his quest for 'glory,' so long as he got the credit. Despite that, the Merc Guild had protected him from prosecution without good, hard evidence.

Acting as if I hadn't noticed the pair, let alone overheard them, I swung my 'hardware' duffel onto a locker that had landed on its side, then helped the kid lift the other the last little bit. An eager gleam lit her greenish eyes as I pulled out the armored back plate that held Dextra and Sinistra, my sheathed daggers, but it turned into a slight pout when I closed that bag back up. Instead, I opened the one with the supplies and set out the water jug, the big bottle of sunscreen, and the regular sunglasses. The gruesome twosome joined us just as I clipped one of the canteens to my belt.

"You're shockingly well-prepared." Johns sneered at me and reached for a dagger hilt. I stopped him by grabbing one of his fingers and twisting it back toward his wrist on the wrong side of his hand, about a centimeter from the bumpy leather wrapping the grip. He winced.

"I was supposed to be meeting some friends for an extreme mountain climbing expedition." My voice dripped saccharine as I made up the story on the spot. Slipping the leather-skinned panel behind me, I did up the buckles rapidly—strap across the hips, ones going from end to end of each sheath, and the one that went in front of my arms and behind my neck. Now I had slightly flexible protection from between my shoulderblades all the way down to my hips, preventing blades and bullets from hitting my innards from behind.

"Sports. How… lovely." I shrugged at the balding man, and he straightened his glasses. "Paris P. Ogilvie. Antiquities dealer, entrepreneur."

"Eileen Bergenhaus. Adrenaline junkie, criminologist." I shook his hand firmly, and then turned to the girl.

"Jack B. Badd." I echoed her grin.

The little nudge was enough to start the others on introductions. Zeke and Shazza were part-time prospectors and part-time bushwhackers. Imam Abu al-Walid had been charged with chaperoning the boys on their hajj to New Mecca. As they spoke no English, he pointed out Suleiman, the oldest, Hassan, and Ali, the youngest of the three brothers. Johns, of course, volunteered no first name, while the pilot revealed that hers was Carolyn.

The two New Australians immediately began scrounging parts to make dispensers for the little cartridges of super-compressed oxygen I'd brought while the rest of us slathered on the protective lotion. I excused myself to 'go put my bags up,' and palmed the second set of heavy-duty shades as soon as I was out of their sight.

Granted, I was taking a risk by trusting Riddick, but I'd take him over a lunatic like Johns any day.

(Riddick)

_Billy Bad-Ass got fuckin' lucky._

If I'd had even one hand outta th' damn cuffs, he'd be dead already. Instead, he got me with a groin shot while I was tryin' to strangle 'im. I'm as vulnerable t' _that_ as any other male.

So now I'm chained up again, my back against one of th' ship's ribs and my hands cuffed on th' other side of it. Been workin' on how to get enough leverage to break the links, if there ain't a way of gettin' things back in front of me so I can grab th' cuttin' torch someone left sittin' nearby. Dumb move, whoever did it. After that, I can get rid of th' fuckin' blindfold and horse-bit.

I scent that half-familiar woman again: sweet, with a touch of vanilla, sweatin' an' oozin' frustration. She opens up one of th' cryo-lockers and dumps some stuff in. One bag makes a familiar thump—rifle case inside, most likely. Then she moves, and th' tear in the black fabric lets me see her. She's damn fine, with her short haircut an' a real woman's curves in contrast against her all-business, lean, muscled arms. Got some sorta strap arrangement across her stomach that makes her tits stand out a bit more. Wearin' a pair of black fatigues that hang a little low on her hips, a knife hilt sticking out on either side of th' waistband.

Lips that're just a hair on th' thin side curve up in a smirk as she leans in close. She presses somethin' into my hand. Takes a second to identify it; the little jolt of electricity surprises me more than gettin' any kind of help. Some sorta elastic band.

"Little bit of a fracture up there." I raise an eyebrow. "Should be easy for someone tall like you to reach." There's a little laugh hidin' in the words. Then she's turnin' away, and I see some sorta panel coverin' her back, with them knives either in it or between it an' her back. Armor, would be my guess. She pulls on th' jacket I know is a match for her pants, even though it's hot as fuckin' Hades out. Probably to keep th' sun off, though what kinda star puts out as much light as I saw without burning off the atmo, I don't know. Round th' corner, and she's outta sight. But sure as hell not outta my mind.

_Curiosity killed th' cat, sure, but satisfaction brought th' fucker back._

Outside the Wreck

Protected by sunscreen and sunglasses, we spread out in a line, ten meters apart. If we covered the full distance recommended by the bushwhackers, it would come to fifteen thousand square meters. The last survivor of the crash _had_ to be somewhere in that area. But checking every piece of debris to see if we could use it made for slow going.

"Hey!" My head popped up at Jack's shout. "Live one!" I headed for her position at a steady jog, the mouthpiece of the improvised breather between my teeth. Zeke got there at almost the same time as me, with Shazza close behind. The others didn't seem to be in any hurry.

The kid had found a cryo-chamber partly buried in the churned-up dirt. The impact-resistant plexiglas of the door was so spider-webbed with cracks that I couldn't see through it, but the occupant's weak groans counted as a definite sign of life. I drew Sinistra—made to fit my left hand, hence the name—and began clearing the material away.

"He belted 'imself in good an' tight." Zeke drew a small pickaxe from his tool belt and started helping. "Think you're gonna need t' cut 'im loose." With enough of the door removed for me to reach inside, I sawed at the heavy crash webbing.

Our rescue proved to be the Irishman I'd noticed when I boarded. A quick mental review told me that each passenger I'd actually looked _at_ and not _past_ had made it through the wreck. Interesting. Johns sauntered up just in time to haul the man out of the potential grave.

I grabbed the med-kit I'd left out as he was stretched on the sideways locker. The moment he could get away, the merc headed forward, toward the place where he'd left his bounty. I concentrated on dealing with the unconscious man; I estimated that he'd been thirty minutes from heatstroke, no more than that. Sudden cursing startled a giggle out of me that I quickly stifled. The blond man stormed around the corner, scowling.

"Anyone got any weapons in the cargo pod?" Among the murmured responses, I gave a completely honest negative; mine were in the remains of the passenger section. Confused looks went around the group. "One of you has to have _something_. Guns, knives, anything?"

"Ah, I may have some antiques." Johns hustled Paris outside, trailed by the Muslims. I made sure to toss one of my canteens to the imam on his way out; Islam forbade alcohol, especially during hajj. Jack looked after them with a bit of worry, but I winked reassuringly. Riddick's list of confirmed-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt kills didn't have a single cleric on it, or a child. She relaxed a little, paying attention to the first aid treatments.

Some fifteen minutes later, the group staggered back, laden with a motley assortment of ancient weapons and over a dozen bottles of alcohol. The prospectors questioned _everything_, giving the booze dubious looks. Where the pampered little man had gotten five Maratha crow-bill war picks originally from Northern India, an extremely rare hunting blow-dart pipe from Papua New Guinea, and valuable liquors like five-hundred-year-old Shiraz, I didn't even want to know.

"What's the point of arming ourselves?" I winced at Paris' increasingly-familiar whine. "If he's gone, he's gone. Why would he bother us?"

"Maybe to take what you got. Maybe to work your nerves. Or maybe just to come back and skull-fuck you in your sleep."

"Well aren't you just a _beacon_ of hope and happiness?" My temper nearly snapped, though I managed to keep it under control. "_Maybe_ he just wants to get off this dustball as badly as the rest of us." The former MP ignored me, handing his pistol to Zeke.

"One shot, if you see him."

"An' what if we don't?"

"Then there'll be no shots." The group began to split again, the kid sticking with the self-proclaimed antiquities dealer and the bushwhackers. As I passed Shazza on the way out, I paused.

"I got a bad feeling Riddick isn't the only dangerous creature around here. Or the _most_ dangerous." She looked intrigued by my comment. "I'd breathe a little easier if everyone tried to stay within sight of at least one other person." The brunette nodded grimly.

"C… could you give my crewies a decent burial? They were good guys who died bad." The request wrung a little bit of sympathy out of me for the pilot. Zeke responded with a solemn nod. "We'd better get started then, while it's cooler, but before nightfall." But Ali darted inside just then, babbling to al-Walid. I joined the general exodus to find out what the fuss was about.

A third sun, casting harsh blue light that strained my eyes despite my shades, had crested the horizon opposite the binary pair.

_Just fuckin' fantastic. Is it EVER dark here?_

"So much for your nightfall."

"So much for my cocktail hour."

"We take this as a good sign." Abu flashed shockingly white teeth in a grin. "A path, direction from Allah. Blue sun, blue water."

"It's a bit of a _bad_ sign." I raised an eyebrow at Johns' correction. "That's Riddick's direction."

"I thought you found his restraints over there, toward sunset."

_So he WAS resourceful enough to get out of them. Wonder what he found to do it with?_

"Which _means_ he went toward sun_rise_." Those of us who were leaving bunched together a bit more, though I stayed well out of it. I wasn't afraid of the convict, though my completely logical side said I should be.

Johns was decidedly jumpy as we reached the edge of the plain, where the ship had gone to ground, and entered a gully between two lines of gravel-covered hills. He'd chosen point position, his big-gauge shotgun constantly swinging through a hundred-and-eighty degree arc. He certainly seemed paranoid, as though Riddick shadowed us, ready to pounce at any moment and commence the slaughter. The sickly-sweet odor that had joined the rest of his scent wasn't reassuring me any, either.

I, on the other hand, chose rearguard, and wished I could turn my nose _off_. The barren terrain smelled of more than just cinder and gypsum; the blood-like scent carried too much copper to be human, and it saturated the landscape. The number of deaths necessary to coat everything was unfathomable. But I saw no visible bones or tracks. Still no clue on who, what, why, when, how.

Then again, an errant breeze brought to my nose the scent I'd begun to associate with the unseen convict, that blend of musk and the lighter copper of human blood. My feral, animalistic side itched to track him down. Not to hunt and kill, which I'd been prepared for before I knew who he was, but to mate. _That_ had never happened before; that part of me had been indifferent to the few casual lovers I'd had in the past.

I caught another whiff of him as a handful of stones rolled from the top of one hill, starting a tiny avalanche. Everyone froze but the merc, who whirled, heedless of the fact that his field of fire swept across the rest of us. If Riddick had caused the rock-fall, either deliberately or by accident, he hid very well. After a tense moment, the Abdullah boys picked up handfuls of gravel and threw pieces toward the slope.

"Seven stones to keep the devil at bay." I rolled my eyes at the imam's quiet explanation. Is it any wonder I'm agnostic, with such superstitious nonsense permeating religion?

Perhaps another hundred and fifty meters along the gully, Johns signaled another stop and lifted his shotgun to peer through the sight. Then he murmured something to Fry. As it trickled back to me, the boys scurried up the scree in that direction.

_Trees? Here? They're water guzzlers, and I haven't seen a single plant yet. Why would there be trees in a landscape like this?_

But they'd all stopped at the crest, and I knew why the moment I could see over it.

Before us stretched a massive boneyard, many of the skeletons easily rivaling the near-legendary dinosaurs of Old Earth. Several of the largest sported bony dorsal fans, their shapes similar to savannah trees. Something about the arrangement of the remains bothered me, and I frowned in thought. Ali asked his mentor something in Arabic.

"He asks what could have killed so many great things." I shivered despite the heat. The culprits—or their descendants, as I had no idea how old the bones might be—were still around, and the weaponry I'd tucked away in the wreck was intended to arm us against them.

"It could be a communal graveyard, like the elephants of Old Earth."

"Or a slaughter yard." With everyone's focus on me, I pointed out what I'd just noticed. "Biggest ones in the middle, and I'd bet money the littlest ones are mixed in with 'em. Slightly smaller ones on the outside. Typical arrangement of a herd on the move, young adults guarding the mommas and babies. And they're mostly facing the same direction, except for the ones furthest in that direction. Stampeded into a blind canyon and killed before they could react much."

"First you're a criminologist, and now you're a wildlife expert?" I turned a deliberately expressionless face on the merc.

"You wanna argue biology and animal behavior patterns with someone who graduated among the top ten students of her high school's senior class… when she was _sixteen_?" There was a long moment of silence.

"I'm taking her word for it," Fry decided. "I just hope we don't come across whatever did this." She started down the slope carefully, bits of gravel rolling downhill with each step. Abu nodded his agreement and herded the three boys along the blonde's path. I flashed Johns a shark-like grin the moment they were out of earshot.

"Majority rules… _merc_." His mouth gaped as though he'd been sucker-punched. Before he could do anything else, I took off, jogging and hopping along the scree on a slightly different route. I was going faster than the others, and I didn't want to run over one of the kids.

Hitting level ground first, I ducked inside a large ribcage and went into prowling mode. I needed to know everything I could learn about the mysterious predators, and checking out the bones was Step One. Running a hand along the inside of a rib revealed shallow but sharply defined grooves going every which way, as if someone had gone nuts with a razorblade on the bone. Three other pieces from three other individuals nearby bore the same sort of markings.

Perhaps they'd been killed by a swarm of razor-toothed carnivores.

Suddenly, Riddick's scent surrounded me, more intense than it had been inside the wreck, and an irregular but sharp edge pressed against my throat while a large, warm body kept me from moving back. For a long second, I froze, then slowly tilted my head to one side, exposing the skin that fluttered faintly over the carotid artery and jugular vein. It was a downright primeval posture indicating surrender or submission.

"So you're th' one makin' Johns look like someone pissed in his booze." The gravelly rumble on top of the scent caused a pleasant shiver to run through my body and left butterflies in my stomach. I smiled a tiny bit.

"He doesn't like the fact that I know he's not the cop he's pretending to be." The mouthpiece of my breather was appropriated. It hissed a few times, and then was clipped back in its place on my shoulder.

"Most women woulda panicked already, tried to run or just plain passed out. But you… you're not afraid of me, are ya, sugar?" I didn't let the pet name rile me.

"No." I shrugged, just a teensy motion of my shoulders. "Dunno why, really. But if what I've managed to figure out from your files is right, then, as long as I'm no threat to you, I should be fine." Only women on that for-sure list were mercs.

"So why surrender?"

"My martial arts instructors teach that, in the face of an opponent that seriously outclasses you, it's better to lose a little face and not challenge 'em." I remembered the rest of the introductory lecture and grinned. "But if you know you can beat the fuck outta someone, act dominant and don't stand for any of their shit."

"Sounds like th' sergeants that taught me hand-to-hand." Previously unrelated bits of information in my head suddenly meshed in a way I hadn't expected.

"Their names wouldn't be Drift and Callahan, would they?" The jagged blade pressed a little harder, but didn't quite break the skin.

"How the _fuck_ do you know that?" The rumble turned into a warning snarl. "Company _erased_ my damn records."

"Just figured it out." A touch more pressure encouraged me to elaborate. "They took a special interest in me quickly when I started going to their dojo. Had me in individual training real fast. Every once in a while, one of 'em compares me to 'Rick.' Told me I'm the second best that's ever been handed to 'em, after him." The convict's grip loosened. "I do believe I'm flattered." The shiv moved away from my throat as he hummed thoughtfully.

"How'd you know that I'd need th' shades and how heavy th' polarization had to be?"

"Didn't know who the hell they were for until Johns slipped up enough for me to connect the dots. And they're just as dark as mine." He snatched my sunglasses off my face, and I yelped, slamming my eyelids shut against the painful light of the blue star. Even in the shadow of the huge skeleton, it was too bright for my unshielded eyes. "Shit! Ow! Goddammit, give 'em back! Fuck!" He moved the blade away entirely, and I reached up to rub at the tears that had formed in an involuntary attempt to protect my vision. I muttered cuss words even as the familiar shape of my glasses bumped an elbow and I grabbed them, jamming them back down on my nose where they belonged. Then I turned to face Riddick, my right hand pulling Dextra a few centimeters out of her sheath. "What the fuckin' _hell_ was that for?"

"Check your story."

"Eileen!" Just as I opened my mouth to chew his ass out for the stunt, Fry's faint shout distracted me. I looked away for only a couple of seconds, but when I looked back, the man was nowhere to be seen. Only his still-strong scent told me he was nearby.

"Do _not_ think this is over." A distinct chuckle answered my growled words. Nope, it hadn't been my imagination before. Schooling my features to hide the aggravation, I ducked out of the massive ribcage just as the pilot came into sight.

"_There_ you are." She bent over, resting a hand on one knee as the other grabbed her breather for a couple of hits of oxygen. "Thought we'd lost you."

"Nah, just checking out the markings on these." I jerked a thumb at the skeleton. "Looked at several; they're all covered with possible tooth marks… if something could have razors for teeth." She grimaced.

"Eww. Let's pray we don't run into whatever had these for dinner, then. We found a canyon leading in the right direction, just waiting on you before we continue." I made a subtly mocking bow and gestured for her to lead the way, then looked back at the dead creature, where I knew the man-shaped predator was watching.

"Play nice with the other children, would ya?"


	5. Chapter 5

Well, another Wednesday and another chapter. This time we get to see into the heads of some of the other survivors. Thanks to WyrlWynd, OceanSyren, and BlueEyedPisces for alerting the story, and to DarkDreamer1982, forestreject, OceanSyren, Nelle07, and BlueEyedPisces for your reviews. And, belatedly, I owe a big debt of gratitude to my betas, Lynx and Vince, for checking things over and finding my little mistakes. Enjoy the chapter!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Five**

Crash Site

(Shazza)

"Comfy up there?" Shazza wrinkled her nose in a rare show of disdain as her husband yelled at Ogilvie. The smaller man had found a folding lawn chair, a small table, and a big umbrella somewhere in the cargo pod and set them up on the highest flat part of the wreckage, taking a bottle of booze with him and declaring that he'd be their lookout.

"Oh, yes." The faint New British accent made his voice more recognizable. Fry, Jack, and Bergenhaus didn't have accents as far as she could tell, and the rescued man wasn't awake yet. The imam had an Arabic lilt and cadence, while Johns seemed to savor every word in what she knew was a Southern drawl—a label that had migrated from Old Earth without sticking to any planet in particular. "It's amazing how you can do without the necessities, provided you have the little luxuries." He raised his drink.

"Little puff pastry wanker." Zeke grunted his agreement as they dragged away the piece of sheet metal bearing the older spacer's corpse. Poor bastard had still been in his cryo-chamber when the ship was hit and he died.

"Just keep your bloody eyes open!" Aborigine ancestors had contributed to the size of her lover's lungs. When he shouted, it could be heard for quite a ways. "I don't want that dog sneakin' up on my bloody ass." It sometimes made for… awkward situations during their brief and usually rare forays into civilization.

"Yes, well, you dig the graves. I'll hold the fort, old boy!" When she glanced over her shoulder to grumble about the pompous merchant, Shazza saw something to put a grin on her face.

"That Jack kid's sneakin' up on 'im, luv." He raised an eyebrow. "How high d'you think the little weasel'll jump?"

(Paris)

"Christ!" The cool edge against his throat scared him out of ten years of his life.

"He'd probably get you right here, under the jaw, and you'd never even hear him coming." The breath Paris had drawn to scream whooshed out of him in a sigh of relief. It was only the brat with a hunting boomerang. At least the other three boys had gone off with the others. "That's how good Riddick is."

_This is why I do not, and will never, have children._

"Yes, well…" He pushed the wooden weapon away from his neck with two fingers. "Now, did you run away from your parents, or did _they_ run away from _you_?" The offended huff was amusing. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping a weather eye on that poor chap we found out in the debris?"

"He's awake." The boy's voice turned snappish. "I'm giving him a little privacy." Jack turned and waved at the miners. "Being polite, if you even know what the word means." He didn't wait for a response, turning and jumping off the edge of the makeshift patio to leave Paris alone again.

"I'd've abandoned him myself." The antiquities dealer shakily raised his bottle for a bracing sip of chardonnay.

(Jack)

"Dr. Sean O'Connell, astrophysicist." The big, bruised, black-haired man extended a hand when she reentered the trashed passenger section. It got a cautious but firm handshake.

"Cool. The captain said we got hit by something, a meteor shower or a rogue comet, knocked us out of the lane we should have been in." Her irritation with Ogilvie and his condescending attitude faded as Jack assessed the rescue. "One of her crewmates died in his tube, and the other one died just after the crash. Lucky one of the other survivors had a med-kit with Anestaphine; the ship's med-lock is probably buried somewhere around here, now." Hopping up on another locker put a little distance between them, and she relaxed a fraction. Just a fraction, though. "So, you know all about stars?"

"My life's study," the man affirmed. "How things work out in the great blue yonder."

She squinted at him from behind the sunglasses Eileen had provided, thrown by the nonsensical phrase. "We've got not one, not two, but _three_ suns here, red, yellow, and blue. First two are a pair, I think, set not long ago. Any idea where we are?"

"Not a one." The doctor shrugged, after a moment to think. "Stable trinary systems are rarer than hens' teeth, and I can't think of one off the top of my head that includes a binary pair." A lot of his phrases didn't make a gram of sense to her, but surviving to be rescued was more important at the moment than figuring it out. "How many of us are left?"

"You're magic number thirteen. Paris is topside, pretendin' to be lookout and gettin' himself drunk." She began ticking the others off on her fingers. "Shazza and Zeke are givin' proper honors to our former crew. Johns, the captain, the holy man, the three boys, and Eileen went lookin' for a water source where we can camp out 'til help comes. And, well, we don't know where the other guy is." There was a bit of an uncomfortable pause. She didn't want to scare the guy half outta his mind by tellin' him Riddick was alive and unaccounted for. "I'm Jack, by the way. Jack B. Badd." She was really starting to like that name. Then she motioned to the things she'd left near him when he started to come around. "Don't leave shelter without shades and a good layer of sunscreen. You'll need the breather, too, 'cause the air's kinda thin for us."

Contrary to her expectations, Dr. O'Connell simply nodded and followed Jack's suggestions.

(Shazza)

Getting Owens out to the gravesite was worse than the old guy. Not physically; if anything, Shazza figured he massed less, which meant they didn't have to work so hard to get him out there. No, it was because they'd seen him alive, first. He felt more like someone who'd been taken away than a… a broken _thing_. She knew what his voice had sounded like, even though he'd been screaming in pain at the time. At least Eileen had been able to free him of that hurt at the end.

She wasn't sure why the smaller and younger-seeming woman had gotten her bags packed in the cryosleep chamber with her, if it had been paranoia, bad timing, or a combination of the two. It sure seemed a bit like she felt others were out to get her, though maybe there was a reason for that behavior. But if that was true, then it made no sense at all for her to leave most of her stuff in the wreck while she went with the scouting expedition. The criminologist was something of a puzzle.

"Wot the bloody 'ell?" Dropping her end of the cable they were using to drag the sled, she joined Zeke in lifting the collapsed corner of the tarp over the grave. No body inside and there was a dark, gaping _hole_ in the pit's wall.

"That's… odd." Yeah, Riddick supposedly stuck to darkness, but she didn't think he had a reputation for cannibalism. Not like the bloke she'd read about in her Old American Literature class. What had the author named him, Hannibal Lecter or something like that?

Nodding silently, her husband shed his tool belt, pulling the line out of the holes in the sheet metal and tying one end into a harness. Shazza automatically anchored the other end to a rock and returned the tarp to its supporting pole. Spelunking probably wasn't the best idea, but how else were they supposed to find out where the corpse went?

Johns' pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, Zeke went in. The rope slid through her loose grip as he crawled further. It stopped for a moment.

"_There_ you are, you bloo—Aaaugh!" The yell startled her into clamping her fingers around the cable as it jumped, and she was nearly pulled over the edge of the grave before she could brace herself. But Shazza leaned back against the pull as the gun started blasting away at something.

"Help! Paris, you eedjit, _HELP_!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to drag her partner back out where she could see and help him. Her arms began to burn before she'd reeled in two meters of cable. He was too heavy, and his pained shouts were starting to get fainter.

The movement from the other side of the excavation barely registered before a solid mass knocked her off her feet and the impromptu safety line was seized by someone else. Someone who started hauling on it like there wasn't more than twenty kilos on the other end. Zeke came flying out, limp as a rag doll, and she blacked out, the last thing she saw being a loop of cable drawn tight below a blood-spurting stump.

(Riddick)

I curse under my breath as th' bushwhacker I'd knocked over passes out. That damn woman, makin' me go soft by callin' 'em 'children.' I put another turn on th' make-do tourniquet an' get th' bleedin' remains of the man's forearm down to a sluggish flow.

Hear feet headed my way. It's a real kid, eyes wide, tube clamped in her mouth, an' a Company-issue field medic's kit in her arms. Looks like a boy, but the nose don't lie t' me; she's buildin' up t' bleed. She skids to a halt in th' loose dirt, glancin' from th' woman t' me an' then th' casualty.

"Gimme a coagulant." She fumbles with th' lid, then looks inside blankly an' back up at me.

"I… I don't know what—"

"Bright fuckin' orange." Good thing about havin' someone else doin' the lookin' is that I _can't_ see color anymore. Not since Pope Joe, Butcher's Bay, an' that freaky hallucination. A tube comes flyin' towards me, an' I hold th' cable in one hand an' catch with th' other.

It's the right size an' shape. I don't fuck with the cap, just tear th' flattened end off with my teeth. Faster, an' it lets me get a good whiff of th' contents.

_Girl's not half bad._

I smear th' goop on th' raw meat left by whatever's down th' hole.

Idiot lost a hand and half his forearm 'cause he went dirt-divin'.

Without askin' for directions or waitin' t' be asked, kid tosses me a roll of gauze, followed by a roll of tape. I make sure t' wrap things up good an' tight, just in case th' gel's gone bad, even though it smelled fine. Can't be too careful with big injuries like this.

I lift th' dumbass an' gently roll him onto th' ground next t' what musta been meant as a grave. I can smell a corpse nearby. Just 'cause th' man did somethin' idiotic don't mean I'm gonna bang him up when he's half dead… especially as it's th' plain truth. Regardless of what th' Company wants people t' think, I don't kill without a damned good reason.

I haven't let th' suits an' uniforms tell me what t' do or who t' be since I got sent back down to Sigma 3 after Drift an' Callahan taught me everythin' they could.

(Jack)

The warm metal Jack had recovered from the bottom of the pit rubbed uncomfortably against her backside as she walked. There had to be some way to close it back up, but she couldn't figure it out. Better to let Eileen handle it.

She trembled with nerves, bringing up the rear of the small group. Aside from Shazza and the out-cold Zeke, they were keepin' a bit of distance between themselves and the convict. Jack wasn't exactly afraid, though fear was part of what she felt.

Without words, she knew she'd done exactly the things Riddick had needed her to do. The entire time, she'd fought tooth and nail against freezing up, hyperventilating, throwing up, or more than one of those. Running away from the sort of things that had occurred at the foster home was well and good, but avoiding gore outright was another thing altogether. She wasn't a fuckin' coward.

It was only as the prospector was laid out on the sideways locker that she thought about how clearly she'd heard the pistol. Thin air carried sound farther.

"The others probably heard the shots." She stiffened as eyes moved and focused on her. "How much d'you wanna bet they come runnin'?"

Canyon

The narrow opening on the sunrise side of the boneyard was, as I'd guessed, too small for even the youngest of the late herd members to have escaped through it. They'd gotten themselves stuck in a dead end, both literally and figuratively. The path between cliffs wound back and forth, around seven or eight meters wide and probably ten below the main surface above. Old high water marks scarred the walls near the level of my shoulders.

Not long after the path began climbing, we passed under the ribcage of something that had died straddling the canyon. Already, we walked perhaps five meters below the edges of the cliffs. Then we left them entirely, cresting a hill to find a heartening sight.

A settlement of some sort lay straight ahead, looking like a bunch of converted shipping containers. The near side gaped around an open area that contained an arched cloth canopy with dry, dead hydroponics plants underneath it. A couple meters away, a battered and slightly bent moisture collector reached toward the sky.

The Abdullah boys scampered down the slope ahead of us to explore. They stayed at the edge of the village, though, waiting for the adults. The oldest cupped his hands around his mouth, calling out.

"As-Salaam 'Aleykum!" As his brothers added their voices, I wracked my brain. I'd learned a few basic phrases from several languages when I started with MM&T, and I thought the call was a greeting of some sort. No response came, just the flapping of tattered, light-bleached clothes on a line. I went into prowling mode again.

Something was wrong with this place. I couldn't put my finger on it, though, and that bothered me. If the former inhabitants had left, then why was their old laundry out to dry? My flesh crawled as though something malicious watched me, something I couldn't see or smell.

I found a larger structure near what I figured was the center of the town. Special care had been taken with it; nearly armor-quality sheet metal was bolted together to form the walls, and there was no sign that it had ever been part of a spacecraft. The materials to build it might have been brought in the converted pods when the settlers arrived, though. I found a pair of heavy doors and a label painted beside them.

**Coring Room**

Geologists, then. They tended to hop from one rock to the next, taking their families with them. Study a planet to the satisfaction of their superiors, pack up, and move on. The only problem lay in the fact that they usually packed up _everything_ they'd brought, leaving only their coring pit as evidence that they'd been there.

Tugging on the handle of one door produced nothing but the rattle of chains. So I tried the other, and received the same puzzling result. Locked from the inside? I circled the building, looking for other exits. In some spots, smaller containers had been attached to the building, perhaps for use as workrooms or labs, but the most any of them had were windows with louvered shutters blocking any view of the interior.

As I checked another offshoot, I caught sight of a gap in the wall of the Coring Room itself. Where it joined the shipping pod, one of the heavy wall plates had been peeled away like a banana, ragged edges showing where the bolts had originally held it to the framework. Ten men working together wouldn't have been able to do that to the two centimeter-thick metal. Nor could a single adult fit through the hole. A child, though, might be curious enough to take a look-see.

A nearby crate provided a handy solution; one side had come off at some point, which would make it easier to close up the breach. I threw all fifty kilos of my mass against the object, but it barely cooperated as I shoved it toward the opening. That was good, since none of the kids would be able to budge it. A soft 'clunk' told me I'd reached my goal, and a quick check revealed that, aside from the drag marks in the dirt, the crate appeared to have been there all along. The tracks were easily scuffed out with a few kicks.

"Helloooo New Mecca!" Fry's shout snapped my head around toward the sound, and I headed in that direction at a trot. Only one hit from the breather was needed; I figured I might be acclimating to the less oxygenated air of the planet.

"It's out of juice, looks like it's been laid up for years." The implied subject piqued my curiosity as I rejoined the group. "But the wings can be patched, and we might be able to adapt the skiff's electrical system so it will take the ship's power ce—"

"Shut up!" I'd heard what Johns wanted the silence for. The merc tensed for a moment, then relaxed. "Sorry, I thought I heard something."

"Like what?"

"Gunshots." My flat statement staggered the pilot and the imam. "I heard 'em, too." Both blonds took off at a run, breather hoses in their mouths. "You stay here, get that collector going." al-Walid nodded, and I hit the trail of the other two at the best sprint I could manage on the available oxygen supply.


	6. Chapter 6

Another week, another chapter. A quick thanks to BlueEyedPisces for the review, and to jjbroadway for the alert. This chapter may seem a bit slow, but we know there's going to be trouble soon...

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Six**

I didn't backtrack along our entire trail. The moment I came out of the canyon, I reoriented to home in on the wreck and took the most direct path I could find. Had the atmosphere been more normal, I would have been able to maintain my sprint for a good fifteen minutes, at least, but I was down to an oxygen-conserving, ground-eating lope after only five minutes. Mentally, I cursed my short stature.

The moment I reached the remains of the ship, my blood boiled. Zeke, unconscious, lay on the upturned locker, his heavily-bandaged left arm across his chest. For a moment, I saw Paris as he peeked over the other man, then ducked back into hiding. The Irishman was slumped over on the ground a short distance away, a sharp-edged red spot on his temple that would turn into a spectacular bruise. Shazza and Jack, both looking dazed, leaned against one of the remaining sections of the hull, the girl visibly struggling to stand.

And at the center of it all, Johns spat curses as he laid into a curled-up figure with his feet and the butt of his shotgun.

"Leave him the fuck alone, asshole!" The girl's protest only caused the merc to backhand her. She fell back on top of the brunette bushwhacker.

I came from behind the blond, landing a quick, forceful leopard punch on his right kidney. His torso snapped upright reflexively as I stepped closer, to stand next to him. Johns turned a bit and took a blow to his solar plexus that staggered him.

"Bitch!" He let go of his gauge and pulled a knife. I brushed aside the overhand strike, grabbing his wrist in the same motion. The blade fell as I dug my fingers into the tendons, and I twisted the arm behind him. The merc bent forward, trying to relieve the pressure on the joints, and I pinned the arm to his back, digging my left elbow in next to his spine to keep him down.

"How do you like it now, motherfucker?" He tried, but couldn't do anything to get out of my hold. My elbow shifted a bit, drawing a choked-off scream. "Do I have your attention now, Mr. Johns?" The blond nodded quickly. "You make _one_ move to hurt someone, and I will gut you like a fish, merc." I eased up enough to get him turned toward the gap in the hull, then propelled him into the harsh sunlight with an ungentle combat boot to his ass.

A darkly amused chuckle drew my attention to the convict. He sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw, and flashed me a grin of predator-to-predator respect. I stepped closer, braced myself, and offered him a hand. He gripped my forearm just below the elbow and pulled; it was a test, so I stood firm as he got to his feet, despite the electric frission where his skin touched mine.

"He… he… Johns is a _bounty hunter_?" Fry was panting and sweating buckets as she stood by the opening. "I thought he was a cop!"

"Probably exactly the assumption he wanted people to make."

"No sane cop puts a con on a civilian transport." Riddick's low voice made the blonde woman jump. "Got their own ships for that. An' cops are generally smart enough not t' go after _me_."

"If I recall the firm's file on him correctly, most of Mr. Johns' catches were in pretty sad shape when he cashed 'em in." The pilot shot me an odd look, shoving her sunglasses up to her forehead. "I work for a private-sector law firm that goes after mercs whenever they get solid evidence against them. We've been watching Johns in particular since he decided to tackle Mr. Riddick." The big man grunted, running a hand over the dark stubble on his scalp. "Running pool on how long you'd make him chase his tail 'fore you ghosted him." That drew an amused snort.

"Zeke's not waking up." The tremble in Shazza's voice put me on high alert. I moved to check the stocky man's pulse: faint, but steady. The bandaged arm was a good fifteen centimeters shorter than the other, at least. But the field dressings that I recognised from the med-kit hadn't started spotting yet. "Somethin' got 'im, took…" The prospector gulped. "Riddick got 'im out when I couldn't. Saved 'im." She stroked her husband's hair as a tear rolled down one cheek.

"Somethin', um, went missin'." Jack spoke up, sunglasses clenched in one hand as she briefly glanced at Fry. "They went lookin', down in a hole they didn't dig, and then that happened." She nodded toward the couple, then reached behind her and produced Johns' pistol. Clever kid had done what many do when they haven't got a holster for their handgun: stuck it through the waistband of her pants at the small of her back.

The slide of the weapon had been drawn back and locked into place, exposing the empty firing chamber. Whatever the bushwhacker had been shooting at, he'd unloaded the entire clip trying to hit it. I held out a hand and she promptly surrendered the gun into my keeping.

"Thought we might need that at some point, so I picked it up before we came back here."

"Good job, kiddo." I flicked the magazine release, dropping the spent clip into the other hand. Twenty rounds, it looked like. That went into one thigh pocket, then I pulled the slide back and let it snap closed before putting it in the other one. One thing I love about fatigues: you never run out of pockets.

"Figure he lost two, maybe two an' a half liters." I winced at the con's words. No wonder Zeke's pulse was hard to feel, he'd lost nearly half the blood in his body. He'd be days regaining the strength to do much.

"We found an abandoned settlement and an emergency skiff." The pilot's nine words brightened faces all around.

"I told the imam to get his boys to help him fix up the moisture collector, so we'll have a supply soon. We should get together whatever we can use, rig up a sled and move our base to the town. Probably cooler in the buildings there than here." Then I eased my shades down my nose and peered over the frames at Paris. "If you want to bring along anything that _isn't_ necessary, you get to carry it yourself." He gave me a far too innocent look in return.

Without a word to anyone, Riddick went outside. I turned the corner and opened the locker that I'd stashed my bags in, hauling them back to the cluster of topsy-turvy metal boxes. Almost the moment I opened the biometric lock on the duffel that held the boxy rifle case, Jack was crouched by my side, eyes glued to the widely varied blades in their unadorned sheaths. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Shazza digging through the jumble of parts she and her husband had scrounged up to make the breathers; maybe she was putting one together for the convict.

"Can I have one?" I grinned at the girl's awed whisper, thought for a moment, and picked out a smallish dagger and a wave-shaped knife. The latter was promptly tucked back where she'd kept the pistol, and the other sheath was threaded onto her belt. Something about her scent was off, bothering me a bit, but I couldn't pinpoint why.

A clatter of metal against the ragged hull announced Riddick's return as he dumped a sizeable rectangle of sheet metal in the breach. A long piece of cable slithered off it, two jagged holes on the narrowest side. Probably what the bushwhackers had been using to move the dead crew. Leaving it there, the large man came my way, pausing only a second before picking up the set of straps holding the swingblades. Considering the size of his hands, I suspected my subconscious had had him in mind when it urged me to buy them.

"What qualifies as necessary?" I blinked, suddenly realizing that I'd been staring as he adjusted the harness. Hoping no one had noticed, I looked over at the Irishman.

"Water-tight containers, definitely. We'll need to get as much water on the skiff as we can, as there's no telling how long it'll take for someone to pick us up. Non-perishable foods. And at least one power cell." I shrugged. "Probably only one, this trip. Too much else that needs to get there ASAP." The military-born acronym came out as 'a-sap' rather than four letters. "There may be some sort of mining vehicle left that we can use to get more if we need them." With that, two men, two women, and a girl scattered like leaves in the wind. As I, too, stood, the convict stepped into my personal space, forcing me to tilt my head back to maintain some semblance of eye contact.

But I wasn't discomfited by the closeness. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Just like that, I'm part of th' gang?"

"You could never be 'part' of any gang. You're too alpha to be anything less than leader."

"And you're all right with that?" A faint note of curiosity entered his bass voice.

"I trust Drift and Callahan's judgment." And I trusted my instincts, as my birth mother's letter had advised—one of only two material possessions I had from her. It and the blanket were both in my bag, tucked inside the case protecting my expensive, company property comm system.

Riddick hummed thoughtfully and left, turning toward the command cabin's resting place before he moved out of my sight.

But not out of my mind.

(Riddick)

She's a puzzle.

An' I have _never_ been able t' resist a fuckin' puzzle. Gotten me outta six slams an' a hundred traps in th' last seven years. Outta Butcher Bay's triple-max cryo-containment, outta Ursa Luna's barely-lit maze of corridors—without th' shine, contrary t' th' few rumors I heard before Johns caught up to me in th' Conga system. Spent too much time settlin' things on th' _Dark Athena_.

Otherwise, I'd've ghosted th' motherfucker before he laid eyes on those kids, let alone th' sights of 'is gauge. Two of 'em dead 'cause of me.

I look over at th' girl as I pass her an' th' ratty-ass bag she's packin' up. What I see tells me she ran… prob'ly from some asshole of a foster home. I c'n guess why, with her dressin' like a boy. Nearly happened t' me, but a fuckin' growth spurt hit me at eight th' way th' ship hit dirt on this shithole.

Pilot's strugglin' with a cell when I duck into the trashed bridge. Squeaks when I pull th' next one over. _Squeaks_. God_damn_, but she's jumpy. Must be guilt; she knows she might've saved more passengers if she hadn't wimped out. Might've saved her crewmate. I ignore her an' swing the cell onto my shoulder before headin' back.

Back to a fascinatin' puzzle named Eileen.

(Eileen)

Johns reappeared when the sled was loaded, Zeke lying on top of a pair of folded Oriental rugs. They weren't a concession to the merchant, nor was the bottle of Smirnoff vodka tucked into a wad of clothes out of my non-'hardware' duffel. Most of the rest were stuffed into my rifle case or cushioning the blades I hadn't passed out. Nor had I given my pistol to anyone—but I _had_ reloaded Johns' gun, since it took the same nine millimeter rounds. I was glad the merc had missed seeing exactly what I had, and his start of surprise when he spotted the very military piece slung across my back had been entertaining.

He and Fry set out first, with several meters between them. Every so often, her head turned toward him, and bitter lines formed around her mouth. Probably because he'd fooled her. Ogilvie, Dr. O'Connell, and Shazza clumped together, the heavy-set scientist gesturing broadly as he described something. I'd asked him to distract them both from their not-inconsiderable worries. Jack hovered between them and me, visibly torn over whose company she preferred.

Riddick had shouldered the draglines before anyone said a word. I hung back enough to walk with him, staying on his right side so that the barrel of my rifle pointed away. The escaped convict simply _leaned_, making metal scrape loudly against hard dirt and gravel. Once it got going, though, it moved easily—probably because it had a layer moving between it and the stationary ground—and he was able to walk more normally.

"You didn't have to play draft horse." He grunted in response to my comment. The crunch of feet on loose pebbles reigned supreme for a bit. "I'm just waiting for that asshole to give me an excuse." That got a turned head and a raised eyebrow. "If it weren't for the others, I would have gotten rid of Johns when I got out of that fuckin' cryo-locker."

"A criminologist willin' to help me behind other people's backs an' wantin' to X out a merc." He didn't phrase it as a question, but I understood.

"I hate double standards, and the bounty hunter-convict dichotomy is one of the worst in existence. It's one of the reasons I chose to work for Meyer, Meyer, and Trent, instead of the Alliance."

"Heard of 'em." One corner of his generous mouth quirked upwards. "From a former merc, just 'fore a couple of his one-time paydays turned him into a smear on the floor."

"Haven't had the opportunity to be part of one of those convictions yet, between cryo driving me bat-shit and only having been with the firm four years." A stony silence all but demanded an explanation, so I affected a nasal tone. "'You'll go right to sleep, and next thing you know, you'll be at your destination.'" I scowled. "What a load of bullshit. Aware of everything around me, but can't do a goddamned thing." That got a contemplative hum, followed by a long, halfway comfortable quiet.

"He killed a couple kids." The _non sequitur_ confused me for a moment before I realized Riddick had answered the question I'd been mulling over for hours, but hadn't asked. "Was gettin' a group of 'em outta gang territory. He shot two, threatened to do two more 'less I surrendered."

A deep, instinctual anger rose in my chest at his words. Cases involving child victims always roused me like that, and I always threw myself into them whole-heartedly. But here, on this desolate little planet, there was no court, no jury… no law. I was going to slice Johns into ribbons, take him apart slowly as he screamed.

"… hang him with his own goddamned intestines while I do it." The eyebrow lifted again. "_Nobody_ hurts kids and gets away with it, if I have anything to say about it."

"Wait 'til he shoots up again, get him t' do somethin' stupid."

"So that stink on him is some kinda drug." The sickly-sweet smell I'd noticed on the first trek had intensified, almost overwhelming the blond's base smell.

"Morphine." I had the large man's full attention now. "Sensitive nose?" I nodded, and he continued. "Keeps his doses in shotgun shells. Might be color-coded, can't tell."

We passed one of the massive skulls, and I recoiled from the foul odor that assaulted me. Menstrual blood reeked like an open cesspool; I used tampons that blocked the scent and came with sealable baggies for disposal because I couldn't stand the smell. Fry, obviously, didn't. She must have taken a piss and discarded a soiled pad or tampon while she had that bit of privacy.

"Oh, _nasty_, Fry." Riddick chuckled at my comment.

"An' your hearing?" His whisper bordered on sub-vocalization, and there was at least a meter between our heads. But to me, it was as clear as a bell, and I nodded. "Senses like mine." His voice returned to a normal volume. "Interesting."

"Only thing I know is that I got them from my biological parents, whoever they were." He hummed thoughtfully.

We crested the hill at the end of the canyon and started down the slope to find an encouraging and welcome sight. Beneath the arched cloth that had sheltered the dried-up 'ponics garden, the Muslims sat around a clear pitcher of water that cast little rainbows around itself. And the collector had to be chugging away, too, if the white plastic barrel fitted snugly under the spigot was any indication.

Apparently spotting the unconscious man on the sled, Abu leapt to his feet, gesturing at the boys as he rushed over.

"What has happened? Is Mr. Ezekiel injured?" The man's formality was becoming familiar. The kids were 'young so-and-so,' while adults were addressed by the appropriate honorific and their surname. He was visibly worried.

"Couple liters and a hand short." Frowns of varying degrees were turned on Johns at the callous remark. His swagger and drawl were back, perhaps because the Arabs had not seen me trounce him. But if he thought that made him 'the boss' again, he had another think coming.

"Some sort of subterranean creature attacked him." Shazza still sounded distraught, and five-UD words were cropping up in her speech unexpectedly, but she'd collected herself outwardly. "He's only alive because of Riddick." She nodded in his direction while my feral side grumbled.

More than a few willing hands helped pull the sled just inside one of the larger homes. A sizeable table filled the first room, set for six, and I began pulling the chairs away and pushing them against a wall. Ali stacked the plates, the dried food making the pile unsteady, then came back for the glasses and silverware while his older brothers wiped the surface clean of accumulated dust.

As the others crowded inside, the odor from the pilot's period grew more dense, until I almost gagged on it. The convict glanced between me and her as he lifted Zeke and transferred him to the table. I moved to open the louvers on the windows, letting light flood in. Light that we'd need to do a proper job of cleaning up the bushwhacker's arm. Jack found a towel and started cleaning years of grime from one of the panels. The boys followed her example.

"Smirnoff." The bottle was tossed toward me, and I caught its neck with one hand. "They had to have an infirmary somewhere around here. We're gonna need sutures, bandaging material, needles, scalpels… The med-kit's for temporary fixes, and the sooner we take care of this, the better it's gonna heal." I shooed most of the others out.

"Looks like th' coagulant was still good." Riddick checked the gauze carefully; there were only a few faintly darker spots on the material. I snorted.

"Of _course_ it was. Who do you think I got the kit from?" The big con didn't reply, laying the arm back on the man's chest and prowling around, examining the room's contents.

"Jackpot." Shazza sailed in, carrying a plastic crate of vacuum-packed medical supplies. "Place is a wreck, but most of it was just tossed around a bit. Not a sign of stored plasma, though." Damn. It looked like my recovery estimate of 'days' was right on target. "See what I can do with the old Sand Cat out there. Maybe get it running." She zipped right back out again.

A moment later, Sean and Abu came in with their own burdens; two bottles of anesthetics and a chest full of tools. The astrophysicist left as soon as he'd gotten the case open on a counter. The imam, however, stayed, preparing to administer both a general knockout gas and a local numbing agent to the patient. I understood—his calling to minister to others drew him to try to alleviate pain in all its forms.

The coagulant's effects didn't make the job much less messy; it simply turned the blood into a thick jelly and gradually broke down to wash away with normal body wastes. Riddick took over from the start, his deceptively large hands and blunt-tipped fingers making tiny, precise movements. Torn blood vessels stitched together, rearranging things so relatively normal blood flow would remain and to prevent a hematoma. Incising away little bits that would have died anyway, or were already dead. The biodegradable sutures would be invaluable there; no need to open things back up to remove them.

Finally, the convict tied off the last of the knots holding down the flap of skin pulled over the stump, and he began wrapping bandaging around it all. One good, thick layer of non-sticking gauze, a second of an ingenious material that, when the cut ends of a piece were connected, shrank down tight enough to prevent contamination without restricting circulation. The end result was perhaps a centimeter thicker than the corresponding parts of the other arm.

Between the three of us, we got him moved to the next container over so no one would have to go into the makeshift OR. Then Abu described, in detail, the condition of the infirmary. I couldn't resist taking a look myself; the destruction centered on some scraps of metal, insulation, and electrical cooling coils. The cooler that the blood would have been kept in.

Now, I was starting to get really worried. The creatures that had attacked Zeke were, without a doubt, at least part of the danger I'd prepared for, and they'd tasted human flesh now. They might have begun to develop a taste for us, even.

But if they had, why hadn't they pursued the 'meal' they had only just started?


	7. Chapter 7

Thank you again to BlueEyedPisces, my only reviewer for last chapter. And a nod to sitabird3, kmcracerx, and Skarlet Rayne for adding this to their alerts . I would like more reviews, though. *pouts* So, revelations ahead for the crash survivors, and a bit of hot-and-heavy... Two more chapters to go after this, everyone! Let me know what you think, please?

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Seven**

"The power systems don't match up exactly." It sounded like Sean's patience was fraying around the edges. "Four more cells from the _Hunter-Gratzner_ will give us ten gigs of extra juice, just in case." Ah, so that was the name of the crashed vessel.

"Shouldn't we get the wings fixed first? What good is power going to do us if it doesn't get off the ground?" Between Riddick being free and the extra breather Shazza had put together for the escaped convict, Johns did not sound like a happy camper.

"And what good would it do us if it could fly, but didn't have any power? We could split up, some staying here to work on the patching while the others go back to the wreck for the cells." I butted in on purpose, getting a couple of thoughtful nods.

"But how do we decide who does what?" The kid had a good point. "An' what kinda timeline are we lookin' at?"

"Got a better question." Heads snapped around and found a solar-powered toy robot and a picture frame in Riddick's hands. "Did th' people who lived here even leave?" A chill ran down my spine. Truthfully, even if there had been a rushed departure, geologists wouldn't have left behind small keepsakes like photos, or their children's toys. And the food caked on the plates Ali had cleared away had looked barely touched.

"Why would they leave their ship?" Trust miserly Paris to raise the most awkward question.

"It's not a _ship_, it's a skiff, and it's disposable." The blond brushed away the others' concern.

"More like an emergency life raft?"

"Could've had a big drop ship take them off planet." Despite her words, the free settler seemed doubtful. And now Jack began looking even more closely at our surroundings.

"These people didn't leave." Shades pushed up over the brim of her leather cap, she glared in response to the skeptical looks cast her way. "Come _on_. Whatever nearly got Zeke _did_ get them. They're all dead."

The merc outright snorted in derision, and the pilot didn't appear to believe it any more than he did. I couldn't tell which way the priest and the astrophysicist were leaning, but it seemed a safe bet that the brunette agreed with the statement. The convict's grim expression was worrying all by itself.

"You don't _really_ think they left with their clothes on th' hooks, photos on th' shelves." Oh, but the man knew how to use his voice and make others react the way he wanted.

"Maybe they had weight limits." Right. Weight limits that precluded a few grams of pictures? Restrictions hadn't been that tight in well over fifty years.

"I know you don't uncrate your emergency ship unless there's a fuckin' emergency."

"Fuckin' ri—" Before Jack could complete her half-idolizing mimicry of the big guy, I gripped the back of her neck gently and gave her a little shake. Like a scolded puppy, she subsided.

"Ohhh, me bloody 'ead." The groan distracted everyone nicely, Shazza going so far as to squeal a bit before rushing to her husband's side. Zeke's face was scrunched up in pain as helpful hands got him upright.

Instead of joining the small crowd pelting him with questions, I went for the med-kit. Since the general anesthetic had worn off, the local couldn't be too far behind. I wanted to have something at hand before that happened so that the bushwhacker had to deal with the full pain as little as possible.

The contents of the box, however, were so jumbled together that I couldn't figure out which were painkillers. The only things still in their place were the remaining syringes of Anestaphine, firmly clipped to the inside of the lid. Nor could I remember the name of the drug off the top of my head.

_Well, shit._

"Niratramadol." I nearly jumped out of my skin as warm breath ghosted over my ear. "Take th' edge off without puttin' him on his back again." Riddick kept sneaking up on me, it seemed. Then he inhaled deeply, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Been a long time since I smelled beautiful."

Heat rushed to my face as he stepped away, no longer hovering over my shoulder. Me, beautiful? No way. I'd always been just another drab-feathered little songbird in a flock that included birds of paradise. No, the convict was trying to rattle me, and I couldn't afford to let him see that he'd succeeded. Not right now.

Collecting my nerves, I poured a glass of water and nudged Hassan. The youth shifted, allowing me to pass the tumbler and a few pills to Shazza just in time. She helped the stocky man down the medication, the visible tension in her shoulders easing as the faint lines of pain smoothed away from his features. After a moment, I asked the question that I was sure everyone was thinking.

"What happened in that hole, Zeke?" He hesitated, glancing at Fry. "We know something went missing, and that's why you went in, but… Anything you can tell us about what attacked you?"

"There was this… this constant clicking." The man shuddered. "Teeth like sharks. That's all I saw before me light got smashed an' they bit me." He lifted his arm and stared at the bandaged stump.

"They destroyed a flashlight and not the pistol?" Perplexed, I drew the weapon from my pocket, noting Johns' glare in my peripheral vision. "You emptied the clip, but you still had it when Riddick pulled you out."

Zeke glanced from it to his unharmed right hand, visibly puzzled. "Don't think they paid any attention to th' damn thing. But they sure went for th' light quick."

"Maybe these things are afraid of light?"

"Sounds more intense than photophobia."

"We're not going to learn anything else or get off this rock if we stand around jacking our jaws." I tried to head off any potential arguments. "Could we at least look around, try to figure out what happened to the geologists that built this place?" The gathering dispersed, the merc going off by himself while the kids paired up with adults. The bushwhackers, naturally, were staying put, and that left me and Riddick.

I wasn't exactly _upset_ that I'd be poking around the settlement with him, just wary. The odd tingle every time our skins touched made me curious, though, so I stuck close. Close enough to notice that he'd found some way to shave off all the stubble from his time in cryo. My feral side wanted to be even closer, but I managed to rein her in… barely.

Until, inside a domicile similar to my apartment back home, I was nudged around so that my back hit the wall with a little thump. A surprised squeak turned into a moan as full lips covered mine with an insistent, heated kiss. The primal part of me took over, leaving my rational mind scratching its head as my fingers clawed at the convict's shirt.

_Where the hell did this come from?_

Oh, I'd been in relationships before, with nice, respectable men, but none had really gone beyond the 'friends with benefits' stage. Now, lust drew a haze over my mind; I wanted to get down and dirty with this singular criminal in the worst way. Then he slid broad hands under my ass and lifted me up, grinding into me. Feeling the hard length of his cock incited a hot wave of desire in me.

"Ohhh, _fuck_." The words left me in a gasp as our mouths parted. I wrapped my legs around his hips as his teeth scraped lightly along my jugular vein. Then he pushed aside the straps of my bra and tank top, nipped lightly at my collarbone, and latched onto the trapezius muscle. That was gonna leave a mark, and if the other survivors saw it, they'd probably make the legendary Spanish Inquisition seem friendly.

"Riddick? Eileen?" He all but dropped me, quickly putting distance between us. I managed not to fall on my butt, and quickly shrugged my shirt back into place, covering the already-reddening mark. Then Jack peered in through the doorway. "We've found some stuff."

She led us around the village to a building that had been set up as a workshop, equipped with a variety of machines that, if I were to hazard a guess, probably analyzed coring samples in various ways. Everyone had gathered around a home-made, solar-powered orrery. Three low-powered light bulbs, colored red, yellow, and blue, circled the empty center, as did two large 'planets,' one of them wearing two sets of rings. And between their orbits sat a small, tan ball that had to represent the damn rock we were currently stuck on.

I heard a counter click softly, watched the representation of the desolate planet as it made almost three rounds of the system before the next click. Okay, counting standard years. A fraction of my attention went to the numbers on the counter, the rest remaining on the simulation.

_Nineteen…_

_Twenty…_

_Twenty-one…_

It turned over to twenty-two, and the whole thing stopped. The gas giants bracketed their much smaller sibling, isolating it from the three stars. A complete goddamned eclipse, on a planet with three suns. The likelihood had to be fuckin' infinitesimal, yet it had happened somehow.

"There's core samples over there." Dr. O'Connell, voice subdued, jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating a table with several long cylinders of rock. "Dated twenty-two years ago this month."

"Oh, _fuck_." I reached over to reset the counter, then pushed the little planet along with one finger. The other two followed, keeping it in shadow, finally shifting out of alignment as the counter clicked again. With light from the bulbs on the tan ball again, the model moved on its own. "Damnit. A year with no fuckin' lights but stars light-fuckin'-years away. This is just _beautiful_." Sarcasm dripped from my words.

"Th' light." My eyes jerked up to meet Zeke's dark ones. "If they didn't like me flashlight, an eclipse would be th' perfect time for them t' come outta them caves." He'd gone white as a sheet, Shazza supporting most of his weight.

"These geologists disappeared twenty-two years ago. Could have been durin' th' last one, even." Her voice trembled, faint traces of fear beginning to show on her face. "If they didn't leave on a drop ship, then what happened?"

"Has anyone checked the coring room?" As I asked the question, my skin crawled. I had a _very_ bad feeling about this.

Ultimately, Johns had to use his shotgun to blow off one of the handles, since none of our attempts to pry them open had done any good. The chains rattled loudly as they slithered out of the other one, but not loudly enough to keep me from hearing the brief burst of clicking. Riddick appeared to pick them up as well, shoving the merc aside and drawing a swingblade. As he stepped toward the building, I covered his open flank, pulling Sinistra.

The doors creaked as they opened to short, sharp pushes, swinging just far enough to admit us. My eyes adjusting to the darkness, I pushed my shades down my nose, peering over the frames to sweep the large room. Movement on the other side of the wide coring pit froze me on the spot, my free hand clamping down on the convict's wrist. He came to an immediate halt.

"What?" He used his quiet whisper, which I thought was an excellent idea.

"Over there." I nodded in the direction where I'd seen them, and he lifted his sunglasses for a look. Then he began easing back toward the entry, pulling the doors shut as we passed them.

"What are you, chicken or somethin'?" A quick flick of my wrist reversed the titanium carbon nitride-coated blade and put the tip under the blond bastard's chin.

"It's called 'survival instincts,' dumbass. There's something alive in there, it sure as hell ain't human, and the only other living things we know of on this planet took Zeke's hand, and would've taken more. So ex_cuse_ me for being a bit cautious." My lip curled.

"Need some power in there t' open things up." I recognized the snap in Riddick's tone as what Sergeant Drift called 'command voice.' It certainly got people hopping. While the others looked around aimlessly, Jack mumbled and swarmed up a ladder on the side of an offshoot. Then she shoved at a lumpy, grey-tan object, pushing it over the side—and barely missing Suleiman with what looked like a bleached-out tarp.

Three large plexiglas bubbles reflected the light of the suns—the blue star setting as the red and yellow ones rose—the black-and-white vanes underneath them spinning slowly, but faster every moment. The simplest kind of solar generator there was, and the most reliable. Metal groaned, then wrenched into motion with the squeal of rusty parts. Perhaps the high-water marks in the canyon weren't as old as I'd thought.

Within moments, an unholy screeching came from inside the armored structure, along with the flapping of leathery wings. Hell, if those things could fucking _fly_, we'd be in deep shit when the lights went out. The noises didn't last long, though, fading away and leaving me wondering where they'd gone.

Cautiously, I nudged the closest door, peering inside to find the facility flooded with light. The massive coring drill hung at the top of its gantry, while metal tables had been overturned all around the room. _Something_ had been in there that was capable of moving quite a bit of mass. One bench even had a couple of its legs bent, the dent in the armor above it suggesting it had been thrown.

"Clear." Pushing it further open, I looked over my shoulder to keep track of the others. Jack scurried down the rungs welded to the container. The imam clutched the hilt of his belt knife, but without drawing the blade.

Wary, the kids stayed near the doors, the girl keeping a little distance between herself and the boys. Shazza and Zeke took up that space, though I'd have preferred that he sit down. My eyes continually moved from one person to the next.

The scrawny little merchant stopped near a door that couldn't have ever been truly airtight. Something rattled against it from inside the addition, and he reached for the latch.

"Paris, _DOWN_!" I warned him just in time, by the barest of margins. He dropped to the floor as the shipping container burst open, a cloud of small creatures emerging. They squealed and clicked madly, circling the room once as the other survivors pressed themselves against the walls, and dove into the gaping hole in the floor. One question answered, I moved to inspect their previous hidey-hole.

Stepping just inside, I raised my shades. Not a large space, but semi-soft debris littered every remaining flat surface. It could have been a break area once, but it had become a nest for the little beasts. A few bones even protruded from one pile.

"Can I get some light in here?" Johns banged the base of an impact flare against the jamb, but at least my glasses were back on. Nothing responded to the burst of green light, so they'd all left. I went to a knee and used a blade to shift fragments of frame and padding away from the cleaned joint I'd spotted. I thought it looked similar to a knee, and one direction yielded up a long, heavy tail that split at the end. The other way bared first a torso, then wings, and finally the head. I sat back, studying the alien conformation and trying to figure it out.

"What the _hell_ is that?" I turned to see Fry peering past the merc. Her eyes didn't move from the cross-shaped skull.

"Probably the same species that got Zeke." I prodded at one of the horizontal bony stalks with a finger, then hesitantly brushed against a large, triangular tooth. "Probably what killed all those creatures in the valley, too." I drew my hand back sharply, then extended it toward the blonde, purposely brushing it with my thumb so that the slice through the top couple layers of skin cells showed. "Razorblades for teeth." At least it hadn't gotten deep enough to bleed.

"Oh, God." She began panicking, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around. I stood, yanked the flare out of the fake cop's hand, and walked over to the coring pit. My hand opened, and the green flame fell, revealing human bones on many small stone ledges, and a very, very large pile at the bottom. Forty people, easy, and many were no longer whole; from twenty meters up, I could see that one skull was shy the entire dome, severed at the nasal cavity.

"Other buildings weren't secure." I couldn't help but jump this time when the convict spoke. He'd snuck up on me _again_. Moved like a goddamn ghost. "So they ran here; heaviest doors. Thought they'd be safe inside." With one last glance at the mass grave, Riddick shrugged. "But somebody forgot to lock th' cellar."

"Well, wh-whatever these things are, they seem to stick to darkness. So if we stick to daylight, we should be okay…"

"There's an _eclipse_ on the way, Fry. Or did you forget about that already?" I all but snarled at the pilot.

"It won't take much to get that old Sand Cat running." The brunette looked desperate to have something to do with her hands. "We'll be able t' make a quick trip back t' th' wreck for those power cells." I nodded, then caught Johns opening his mouth. Probably to veto the idea.

"I don't wanna hear a sound outta your piehole, merc." My finger jabbed at his chest before he could utter a peep. "I am _not_ risking their lives because of your paranoia." The digit swiveled, pointing at the four youngsters. "Especially not _theirs_." On one side of the bushwhackers, the boys hung on to each other, and on the other, Jack had wrapped her arms tightly around herself. A brief sniff told me why; she'd just started her period, probably hadn't even noticed the spotting yet.

_Good thing I always pack extra tampons. HER, I'll help gladly. And some of my extra clothes._

"He escaped—" As the words left the blond man's lips, I let my left leg fold and swept the other from right to left, knocking his feet out from under him. He hit the floor with a thump, and I quickly pinned him with a knee to his breastbone. Popping open his red box of shotgun shells, I found that about half of them were capped with the usual blue plastic, and the other half with red. Pulling the cap off one of the odd ones, I dumped the casing into my hand. No powder, no grapeshot, just two slim ampules of clear fluid, marked off with lines measuring the volume. A half-second frisking turned up an optical hypodermic gun.

"Who wants to trust the hype?" I slid the stuff across the dirty floor, aiming for the civilians gathering in an ever-tighter clump. "Who wants to trust the man who killed two children in cold blood so that he could bag a big payday?" Shazza had pulled the kid close, while Abu murmured to his charges; probably translating for me. Then I looked at Riddick.

"Who wants to trust the man who tried to get street kids out of gang territory?" My voice had changed, going from hard and snarling to much gentler tones. The convict jerked as though burned. "Who wants to trust the man who rescued Zeke?" The married couple, the girl, and the astrophysicist didn't hesitate to move toward him. A beat later, the other six followed. Sunglasses or no, Riddick looked quite stunned, but he quickly collected himself.

"Zeke, Ogilvie, holy man, you an' the kids're stayin' here." The convict's command voice was back, brooking no nonsense. "Fry, run th' checks on that skiff _now_. Shazza, Sand Cat." Nothing more needed to be said on _that_ subject. "Everyone else, start searchin' containers. Need t' find th' spare Vectran." I stood then, dusting grit off my hands and the knees of my pants.

"Patching will be your job." The three men who'd been told to stay focused on me. "After that, what supplies you can find need to be loaded. Water is first priority, e-rations second."

"I'm staying with you." Alarms rang in my head at the tremor of fear in Jack's voice. Her presence on the _Hunter-Gratzner_ hadn't been due to wanderlust, but because someone or something had scared her into running. Whatever had caused it, I would find out eventually, and then someone would be paying the piper.

"I should stay here. I'm out of shape, would only slow you down." Sean shifted his feet. "And I've worked with Vectran before, so I can at least speed that up."

"Then I will take your place, Dr. O'Connell." I groaned at the imam's words.

"Fine. But _no more changes_." Riddick's bark made it clear that his word was final. "Let's _move_, people, we're wastin' daylight." The two other women took off at a run; how soon we got off this deathtrap of a planet greatly depended on how quickly and efficiently they could complete their tasks. The rest split up more slowly, and I put a hand on the girl's trembling shoulders to steer her into another small home.

"Goddammit, girl, I'm tryin' to keep you _safe_ from those… _things_." I injected as much disgust into the last word as I could manage. The kid all but jumped out of her skin.

"You… you know?" So much terror bled into her voice that I pushed my shades up and put a gentle hand on each of her arms. I didn't want her afraid of _me_.

"Hon, a criminologist is a type of detective. But I promise you, Riddick's the only other person who knows." My brows knit with worry. "Why don't you want to stay here? The skiff has more than enough lights to keep those things away if the eclipse happens before we're ready to go."

"Th-they're all g-guys…" Tears drew clean tracks down her face as she swallowed a sob. I pulled her into a hug as my mind raced, keeping her from seeing the barely-leashed fury I was feeling. Her desperate grip nearly squeezed me in two.

She'd been molested, at the _very_ least, probably worse. And more than a couple of times, if she'd developed enough of a fear that she didn't feel safe unless a grown woman was around. She appeared to be trying to stick with me or Shazza, not Fry, so it probably had to be a woman who gave a damn about her well-being.

"It's gonna be okay." I took off her cap, smoothing down her baby-fine hair with the other hand. Couldn't be sure that things _would_ turn out all right, but she needed the reassurance. "But you gotta work with us here. Right now, you'd probably smell really good to those beasts, so we gotta fix that." She stared blankly. Hell, she had no clue what I meant. "You're getting cramps, right? Feeling pretty rotten?" A quick nod.

"Do you know what's wrong with me? I'm not sick, am I?"

"No, no. You're starting your first period. It's a perfectly normal part of growing up for us. But it means your body's getting rid of some pretty nasty, bloody stuff, and we need to fix things so it can't be smelled. Gimme just a couple of minutes, and I'll have some stuff that'll help." When she nodded, I darted outside and found my bags, piled near the skiff. It took less than a minute to dig out what Jack needed, and then I headed back at a run.

Fortunately, everyone else was occupied with other things and failed to notice me.

Someone, at least, had fostered the kid's mind. She was sharp enough that she caught on with minimal explanation and slipped into the long-abandoned house's bathroom to change. A loud sniffle announced her emergence, and she leaned up against my side almost immediately.

"What else do I gotta do?"

"If Riddick or I tell you to do something, you need to obey immediately. No arguments, no questions. One of us says 'jump,' you'd better be on the way up before you ask 'how high?' Understood?"

"'Cause you don't give orders without a good reason, right?" I nodded, getting her to smile. "And neither does Big Evil." Chuckling, I gave her a bit of a squeeze.

"When we get off this rock, I'd like to know what put you on the _Hunter-Gratzner_, okay? What Johns did… I don't let people get away with things like that, with hurting kids, especially, if I can help it. And my boss, Jamie—he's the closest thing I have to a brother—he's a lawyer, and hell on wheels for anyone who crosses either of us. He'd be more than happy to go to bat for you in the courts, if necessary."

"Thank you." Jack put an arm around my waist and returned my one-armed hug as she whispered. After a moment, she pulled away and scampered out the door.

"Took care of that?" The gravelly voice startled me again. I spun and smacked the convict in the chest. He didn't react to the blow at all.

"Will you _cut that out_?" He grinned broadly. "You're worse than the Sergeants; at least I can fuckin' well _hear_ them."

"Not gonna be altruistic an' shit an' help th' pilot, too?" A dark chuckle accompanied the words.

"Once we get those cells and a light source in case we aren't fast enough to beat the eclipse, I don't care if she lives or dies." I half-snarled as I spoke. "Not when she was gonna purge the whole passenger cabin to save her own cowardly ass."

With a smug grin, Riddick moved closer, the toes of his boots almost touching mine. He leaned down, and for a moment I thought there was going to be a repeat of the earlier kiss. Instead, he went to my shoulder, nose flaring as he breathed in deeply, moving up my neck to my ear. When he stepped back, his expression seemed even more self-satisfied.

Taking note of my personal scent, I realized. And it was at least the second time. My inner beast all but purred at the knowledge, while my rational side wondered _why_ he wanted to know what I smelled like.

"An' what about Johns?"

"Billy Bad-Ass has used up all his warnings." He cocked an eyebrow. "He's already got two strikes against him. He tries somethin'… Three strikes, and he's out. Not gonna wait on him at any point, either. If he can't keep up, then that's just too damn bad." I ended on a sarcastic note. _If_ the merc managed to make it all the way back, I'd shoot him before I let him get on the little emergency vessel. It would be crowded enough with twelve.

The convict touched his lips to mine, more gently than before. The taste of him intoxicated me as his tongue probed my mouth. Eventually, though, my lungs demanded air, and I had to pull away. He paced over to the door, but turned at the last moment, slowly licking his lips.

"I _like_ th' way you think." His teeth flashed in a savage grin, and then he slipped out of the converted cargo container.

I had to admit it, he set every one of my senses on fire. As I slid down the wall to sit on the dusty floor, I hoped that I could keep from jumping his bones for long enough to get our little group of survivors off this fucking planet. Without anyone but Johns and maybe Fry becoming alien chow, at least.


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks again to BlueEyedPisces and Peggy for your reviews. Please, please give me feedback - it helps me get better as a writer! This is, I believe, the longest chapter so far, and packed chock full of action. Enjoy!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Eight**

Having recovered my equilibrium, sort of, I turned a corner and stepped onto the homegrown tarmac just as the aft hull of the skiff lowered to form a ramp. At the same time, Shazza and Jack slithered out from underneath the Sand Cat, both liberally smeared with dust and grease. The bushwhacker slid into the driver's seat as her 'assistant' stepped back, the machine starting with a purr and a youthful whoop of joy.

Fry, coming out of the emergency craft, looked over at them briefly, then scanned the area. Her eyes fixed on me, and I stifled a groan; apparently they'd elected me leader while I was away from them. The blonde strode over quickly.

"Everything's green except for the power levels. All we need is those cells." I nodded before crouching by my bags. Since they were right where I'd left them, it took but a moment to retrieve my pistol and the three spare clips of ammo. Weapons standards being what they were, the clips would fit into the gun formerly owned by Johns just as well as they fit mine. I straightened, turning to where the boys, their mentor, and the men who would be staying behind were clustered.

"Here." I held each semi-automatic by the barrel as I presented them to Sean and Paris. The heavy-set man took one without hesitation, while the merchant acted like the firearm was a snake that would bite him. "When it starts getting dark, pack it in and turn on every interior light. And stay well in the light; they might try for anyone too close to the shadows." Zeke grimaced, rubbing around his elbow, where the dressing ended. Not a lesson any of them would forget soon, I thought. Maybe not ever.

"Saddle up, people! Let's _move_!" At Riddick's shout, Abu bent to say one last thing to his charges before following me to the Cat. Using a wheel for a step, I swung lightly up into the bed. The makeshift sled leaned against the roll cage on the other side; apparently I wasn't the only one who thought the eclipse would arrive before we returned.

Even with a good 350-plus kilos of load, the geologists' rugged vehicle managed a fair turn of speed. The convict, looking forward, pointed at something, and my head whipped around just in time to see Jack duck, preventing the old ribcage from taking off her head. The high metal bars on either side of her _did_ hit the bones. Chips flew in all directions, and the structure tumbled into the canyon behind us.

_That's gonna slow us down._

After a moment, the kid tugged on one arm of the half-forgotten jacket tied around my waist. I handed it over, and she began rubbing industriously at the plastic dome over the generator. As grime came off, the engine hummed louder, granting us perhaps another klick or two per hour of travel.

Our erstwhile chariot burst onto the dry plain like a bat out of hell, trailing a faint cloud of dust. I glanced at the western horizon, then did a double-take; a peculiar fuzziness had joined the heat shimmer in the air. After a heartbeat of frozen panic, my mind went into overdrive, developing contingency plans.

The size of the group made the pulling list a short one. Jack would need years of growth and training before she'd be capable of even _dragging_ one of the thirty-five kilo cells very far. I had no sure idea of Fry and Shazza's hauling potential, but counted them as debatable. Even I would have difficulty with the task. That left only the three men with us, but there might be something else we women could do to help. I leaned forward and tapped the blonde woman's shoulder as the wreck came into sight.

"Is there any kind of lighting still functional in there that you could pull out?" My voice neared a yelling volume to get over the sound of the Cat. "We ain't beatin' the dark, an' this thing's solar!"

"Fiberoptics in the command module," she yelled back. "But the way back isn't marked!"

"It is, t' me." The big man leaned in to contribute, a reflection of the binary suns flashing across his shades. "Between th' tracks and an' landmarks, I c'n lead when th' light goes." Fry appeared a bit confused, but didn't pursue the subject.

"You pull those optics while the guys get the cells." We skidded to a halt, tailgate angled toward the gaping hull. "Jack, stay here and sing out the moment you see sure sign of one of the gas giants. Shazza, with me." Everyone but the girl piling out in a hurry, I loped off toward the cargo pod, the bushwhacker right on my heels.

"What're we lookin' for?" I shoved open the damaged door to Paris' compartment and started digging through the jumble of antiques.

"Any of the booze you can find. If it's over forty-five proof, hang on to it, 'cause that'll burn well enough to make torches when we need 'em." Something fell with a metallic 'thump.' "Flashlights, too." Then, for a while, neither of us spoke.

"Guess I'll _have_ t' call Dad when we get back t' civilization." The brunette's grumbling piqued my interest. "Hope he'll cut Zeke a little slack for a change."

"Doesn't think Zeke's good enough for you?" She didn't seem to mind my asking.

"Bloody hell, no. Last time I talked to 'im, he called m'husband 'low-born trash.' Ended _that_ conversation right quick."

"Where the fuck do people get those kinds of stupid fuckin' ideas?" I uncovered a bottle of Jack Daniels, wrinkling my nose at the brown liquid inside. "Born with silver spoons in their damn mouths?"

"Well, yeah." That brought my head up real fast, and I saw Shazza fingering her necklace. I hadn't gotten a good look at it before, thought it might be metal-plated beads. But no, I saw the slight irregularities and realized now that it probably could have bought the _Hunter-Gratzner_ prior to the crash: four strands of big, fat, black pearls. God_damn_. "M'dad's Robert Montgomery."

"Not _the_ Robert Montgomery?" She blinked at me. "Randy Trent's friend?" The mention of the head of MM&T got a snort and a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah… but not many can get away with callin' Uncle Randy that."

"He's had me do some long-distance consultations on tough cases." I got back to rooting through the hodgepodge as I talked. "A little annoyed that I refuse to go cryo for travel; a mere criminologist, no matter how good, doesn't rate a hyper-capable ship's fees." Silence, and I decided to take a chance. "I… Something told me I'd be needed on this ship. I was the last person put in a passenger tube."

"Damn straight we need you." The force in the other woman's assertion indicated that I'd chosen the right person to confess to. "Th' med-kit, shades, sunscreen, oxy caps… weapons. That 'something' told you what t'pack, too, didn't it?"

"Mhm." I frowned to myself. "I think I might have said something to Riddick that got him to rescue Zeke." She hummed a wordless question. "Johns was right about which way he went. Sneaked up on me while I was snooping around in the boneyard, and we had ourselves a little conversation. I told him to 'play nice with the other children.'" Shazza stifled a laugh.

"I got four… don't think I can carry any more without breakin' somethin'." Spotting a heavy-duty flashlight, I stuck it through my belt and snagged a Jim Beam, bringing my own total to four. Then I followed the free settler out.

"Hurry up!" The kid had quite the set of lungs, her voice sounding clearly across the terrain. "Ring comin' up west!" Both of us broke into a shambling, careful run as I saw Johns and Abu hauling a cylindrical piece of equipment out of the cockpit. Right behind them, the big guy carried two power cells, one over each shoulder, with no apparent strain at all. And a shit-eating grin on his face.

The bottles went in one front corner of the bed, alongside the flashlight I'd found and three more that Carolyn turned up. I scrambled up the roll cage as Riddick lifted the sled from the other side and clapped it down over the cargo. He took two quick loops of the cable around the rear bumper, one from either side of the sheet metal, and then weighted it down by the simple expedient of sitting on it. Shazza put the hammer down just a fraction of a second after the merc got a good hold on a safety handle. As he flailed for another point of purchase, the tires spat out dust and gravel, propelling us back the way we'd come at full speed.

We'd just barely hit the gravel hills when the light dimmed. The solar-powered engine sputtered and whined as it slowed. A look back showed me part of a massive sphere and two wide arcs of space debris soaring into the sky. The further-flung one of them crossed the yellow star, the Cat jerking ahead as it passed. Then the second and fatter ring covered the sun again as its sibling obscured the red star. The engine died entirely, and we rolled to a stop.

"Oh. My. God." Fry's half-whispered words, filled with terror, snapped my attention over to the still-visible spires silhouetted against deep orange atmosphere… and the smoke-like darkness emerging from them. Fisting my hands in Jack and the pilot's shirts, I dove off the vehicle and took them with me. At least they caught on quickly when I scuttled under the chassis and joined me.

Shazza rolled in, my hand shooting out over the kid's back to keep her from flattening any of us more than we already were. Her dazed expression, combined with the momentum, told me she'd been thrown under with us by the convict. It was getting a bit crowded in the space between the wheels.

Until the sled thumped down, the cables around the bumper turning it into a lean-to with another two and a half meters of cover. The imam crawled in, and then, after a slight scuffle and a dull 'thud,' so did the last two members of our party. Or rather, Riddick crawled in and dragged the stunned and maybe even concussed Johns behind him.

_Hard-headed obviously doesn't even come close. The guys at the office will love hearing this._

As the now blood-red twilight deepened, part of the seething cloud split off. No longer could it be mistaken for anything but living creatures. Like a negative image of a comet, it streaked toward the wreck we couldn't see anymore… and the pasted, partially carbonized remains of around thirty human bodies. The mass stayed in that area only briefly before heading straight for us.

A small, high-pitched whine, nearly inaudible even to my wider range, started up next to me, and I slapped a dusty hand over the blonde's mouth. She choked on the proto-scream, and I saw Jack cover her own lips out of the corner of my eye. With my free hand, I pulled off my sunglasses, closed them against my collarbone, and stuck them securely in a thigh pocket. Then I looked back out, vision unimpeded, as the squealing mob of creatures neared.

My first instinct to hit the deck had, as usual, been right; the little beasts gave the ground around a meter of clearance, chittering madly as they flew. They treated the Sand Cat as little more than a big rock, the sea of bodies parting around it without hitting a damned thing. Just in case, I pinned the kid with a hand on her back. She squirmed just a little, but didn't make a peep.

The things went past, but I still didn't let go of Fry or the girl. They both jerked when the wave of alien predators made another flyby. The gas giant swallowed the last of the real light as we were finally left alone. My purple-hued night vision kept me rooted to the spot as I watched the distant hilltop crumble from within, releasing much larger relatives of our harassers, many probably near the size of our very temporary shelter.

"Lez'go, lez'go!" My growl had the others bursting from cover to start unloading our cargo by feel. Riddick took his time, casually dusting off his hands as he stared at me. I could see the shine of his retinas, a cool silver contrast, and knew he could see mine in return. Momentarily, he frowned, before heaving two power cells off the bed and onto the sheet metal with a 'thunk' and a slither as the cables released the bumper.

The pilot flipped a switch, and I squinted briefly as my eyes switched back to normal sight. Not a good thing, not in these conditions. I snagged the flashlights and a coil of thin, flexible material. It could have been electrical wire, surveying line, hell, even detonation cord, but I didn't care. What mattered was the quick solution to distribution of free light sources that it could become. I tied two harnesses, one simple that would shine the big torch down my back and a small one down my front, and one complex that would put the two mid-sized handlights down the convict's back and still leave him free to pull the swingblades when necessary.

When, not if.

Five loops of fiberoptic cable, glowing blue, tethered the others to the generator and the sled it rode on. Johns and Abu lifted the lines, but froze when Riddick spoke.

"I want th' light on my back, not in my face." His tone allowed for no argument or disobedience. I handed him the pair of flashlights, moving to the opposite end of the convoy when he shrugged the cord over his shoulders without turning. "I can't lead ya anywhere if I've been flash-blinded." He looked back just slightly, that metallic shine flashing for a second.

"Where the _hell_ can I get eyes like that?" Jack's question burst from her on the exhale of an amazed gasp. It sounded almost _too_ eager, and the large frame tensed just a hair before the reply came.

"Don't rightly know, kid. I find out, I'll tell you."

_He hasn't had them all his life? But… I have. If we're from the same people, then why the difference? And how?_

He moved off at a slow, casual walk that the others could keep up with despite their burdens. I fingered the barrel of my rifle as I turned to watch the backtrail. I hadn't really thought about the weapon since before leaving the settlement, but that was par for the course. I doubted that I'd use it in any case; I couldn't waste the time or ammunition that finding the kill zone on these motherfuckers would require. Better to stick to Dextra and Sinistra, with their incredibly durable coating of titanium carbon nitride.

Blades don't need to be reloaded.

"Aw, you gotta be shittin' me!" At the merc's groan, I whipped back around. "A criminologist with a prison shine?" Knowing that my eyes were back to steel blue with a black pupil, unable to see anything beyond the small circle of light, I stalked toward the blond.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" The too-calm growl was a tone of voice that scared even the usually-unflappable Jamie shitless. I got right up in the bastard's face. "Do you _see_ a shine job? Or are you fuckin' high again?" My inner beast lurked very close to the surface, and she wanted dearly to rip the child-killer limb from limb. He bared his teeth in a pitiful attempt to snarl, to which I responded with a casual-appearing backhanded slap that hit hard enough to turn his head nearly ninety degrees. "Get a goddamned move on, dumbass, before I gut you on principle."

I stormed back to my self-assigned rearguard position as the little caravan got going again. The pilot glanced at me warily, as though direct eye contact would make me jump all over her case. The girl grinned, and the bushwhacker settled for a smirk. Peering into the darkness, I walked backward in the sled's wake, my eyes adjusting again to reveal large predators, big enough to match any of us, circling at a cautious distance.

"An' Dad thinks _Zeke_ is uncivilized."

"You ain't seen nothin' yet." I could tell that my grin was audible by the kid's smothered laugh. "I put on a front most of the time, especially for work. But the ex-Sergeants I train with gimme a lot of room to let the animal out." The brunette chuckled quietly, and then a hush descended over us, leaving the crunch of gravel underfoot, the hiss of breathers from occasional hits of oxygen, and the eerie whooping and clicking calls of the aliens.

"Why are we leaving the trail?" Fry asked several minutes later. I feared that the answer had to do with the crunching and tearing of flesh that my ears had picked up.

"Hard t' tell, but it looks like a couple of those big boys tearin' each other's gonads off." Riddick's frank reply made me wince. "Figured we'd better go 'round 'em. That okay with you, Skipper?" Derision leaked into his voice; he knew she wasn't the captain. She shut up.

The boneyard made me twitchy as hell. Large forms moved inside the massive ribcages, sporadic talons and sinuous, forked tails poking out between the close-set bones. With so little space for us to move in, I worried that each new move by the beasts would be the one that told them we'd be nice to have for dinner. And not as guests.

The bones thinned out, but my shoulders relaxed only for a few moments before I spotted the tire tracks moving off to my right. I scanned for the problem as we continued to veer in the same direction. Nearly halfway around, the canyon came into view, its cliff tops teeming with predators, the biggest ones with heads probably as high and wide as I was tall.

A goddamned gauntlet. Waiting for us to enter the narrow channel, where we could be picked off at their leisure. No wonder the convict was leading us in a circle, he needed time to come up with a plan.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Johns balked the moment our earlier drag marks probably entered the small halo of blue light.

"_Why_ are we crossing our own path?"

"Canyon." I kept my face expressionless as I turned to face forward.

"Needed time t' figure out how t' get through with her bleedin'." Fry's head whipped back and forth as she tried to follow who was speaking at the moment.

"None of them are cut." The merc scowled. Certifiable idiot as well as Grade-A asshole.

"Not that kinda bleedin'." The big guy's all-too-casual return shot caused feet to shuffle. Jack glanced at me with the question in her eyes, but I shook my head. No reason to reveal her secret at the moment, because the cowardly bitch was the one attracting them.

"'Snot _me_." Shazza's jaw clenched, the muscles working under the skin. "Had mine a week before we went into cryo."

"Not me, either." Having made my disclaimer, I turned cool eyes on the pilot.

"They've been nose-open for her th' entire time." Inflectionless words had the others glaring at the blonde in an instant.

"Well, butch up and stuff a cork in it." The tow-headed pair locked stares.

"Did what I could already, dickwad. Let's just _go_, get through the canyon and leave this shitty little rock." With a snarl, the former MP threw his cable to the ground, ditched his loop of fiberoptics, and lit another green flare as he stalked toward Riddick, walking about five meters ahead.

"Where are you going?" Fry asked as she took his place, I moved closer, my feet missing the back edge of the sled by centimeters.

"Oh, I don't know, Carolyn." He turned halfway between the sled and our guide, spreading his arms. "Thought I'd go for a stroll— nice breeze, wide open space. I'm starting to enjoy my fuckin' self out here."

"What? Are you high again, Johns?" Irritation filled the pilot's voice, but the only response she got was the merc flipping her the bird as he got closer to Riddick.

"Ain't all of us gonna make it." Hearing the Southern drawl, my ears focused on it; the alien cries became mere background noise. No way could Johns be up to any good.

"Just realized that?" Sarcasm dripped off the convict's words.

"Seven of us." A lengthy pause. "If we could get through that canyon and lose just one, that'd be quite a fuckin' feat, huh? A good thing, right?"

"Not if _I'm_ th' one." Affected by the bristling tone, I felt a growl start deep in my chest. Before it could emerge, though, I tamped it down to a vibration.

"What if you're one of six?" The shaven man's stony silence didn't seem to discourage the druggie. Instead, he explained. "Look, it's hellified stuff, but no different from those battlefield doctors when they have to decide who lives and who dies. It's called 'triage,' okay?" Another sign that the merc had no clue about Riddick's military past. Another example of the Company's efforts to erase the man's history.

"Kept callin' it 'murder' when I did it." The smart-aleck reply forced me to stomp on my amused snort.

"Either way, I figure it's somethin' you can grab onto." The muscles visible under the black tank tensed visibly. I knew, inexplicably, that he was no more comfortable with the direction Johns seemed to be headed in than I was. If the blond had had even two brain cells to rub together, he should have realized that only he fit into the categories of the convict's past confirmed kills.

No clerics. Certainly no kids. And when it came to women, only those who had attacked him first.

"Sacrifice play." Riddick began digging for the details of the merc's plan. "Hack up one body, leave it at th' start of th' canyon. Like a bucket of chum."

_An apt analogy._

"_Trawl_ with it." My gorge rose, bitter fluid stinging at the back of my throat despite the fact that I had never been squeamish. "There's another cable on the sled. We can drag the body behind us."

"Nice embellishment." Once again, Johns completely missed the sarcasm.

"We don't wanna _feed_ these land-sharks, just keep 'em off our scent." Ignore the fact that the fresh meat would be just behind us the entire time. I rolled my eyes.

"So which one caught your eye?" Riddick glanced back over his shoulder, meeting my eyes. The unvoiced question had me grimacing and nodding. I'd heard, all right.

"Don' look, don' look, don' look!" Johns' hiss turned our guide forward again. "What the hell's wrong with you? Let's not name the Thanksgiving turkey, okay?"

"Slow down a little." Fry put a hand on Abu's arm, watching the other two men warily. "Put a little distance between us and them."

"Keep moving." She looked at me. "Or do you want me to not hear what's up?" Even as I spoke, I moved forward to walk beside the blonde. The fiberoptic cables flickered, and Shazza pulled a bottle off the sled to light it. I returned my focus to the more important matter.

"Now, you got those fancy-ass knives… You do the kid, and I'll keep the others off your back."

"What, you 'spect _me_ to do it?" I smiled when I heard the indignant retort.

"What's one more to ya?" My anger rose, but the convict beat me to the punch.

"_Fuck_ you, merc."

"Wrong victim to suggest, Billy-boy." He whipped around to face my unamused smile. "Come on, now, don't you research people before you decide to go after them?" I pointed. "He doesn't _do_ kids."

"Wh- what the fuck are you talkin' about?" I laughed, tapping my ear as my other hand drew a blade. Then the light was behind me, and my eyes changed as Johns stared, aghast.

"Hate to agree with 'im, but what d'ya mean?"

"Simple, Shazza. Billy Bad-Ass was tryin' to talk Big Evil into offin' Jack as bait." Riddick slipped out of the harness that held his flashlights, dropping them gently on the ground before moving away.

"First he deceives us, and now he plots the death of another child?" The cleric sounded like he was actually getting pissed off.

"Think maybe we need a bigger piece of bait." A broad hand flashed, like a snake striking its prey, and knocked the flare out of the other man's grip. It spun to a halt in the middle of a clear area as the pair struggled over control of the gauge. Twice, it fired, each shot accompanied by a screech as the lead pellets found alien flesh. I sidled along the border between light and dark, watching the fight warily.

Johns managed to get enough of a hold to smash the stock into the larger man's arm, dislocating his elbow with a dull 'pop' and wrenching the shotgun away. It slipped through his hands, though, landing near the edge of the impromptu arena. Riddick realigned his own bones with a jerk before moving forward again.

The merc snatched up a long bone and began swinging it like a club, but my attention went past him. Large creatures had begun to gather, eyeless heads seeming to watch the fight. The convict evened the armaments again, finding his own cudgel.

"You're a piece of work, Johns." Bones met with a crack as I called out.

"They oughtta hang you up in a museum." The gravelly voice practically continued my thought as the blond tried to force a retreat. He had no luck, of course; his opponent probably had a third again his mass.

"Or maybe they should just hang you," I finished. Riddick's club smashed the hype's fingers, making him drop the bone as he fell. Johns reached for the gun only a few meters away.

"You wanna fight?" he asked, badge flashing in the flare's light. "Bring it on, Trash Baby." The big guy melted into the dark as I wondered where that vile little nickname came from.

"Just one rule." His voice moved, the merc trying to orient on it as he swung the gauge up and opened its breech, loading two more shells. "Stay in th' light." Two random shots hit nothing but gruesome beasts, and the half-agitated whooping and clicking gained speed and volume as the wounded ones snapped at each other.

Another pair of shells went in, but not quickly enough. Riddick slipped behind the former MP as the flare sputtered, one swingblade parting the merc's shirt and cutting shallowly into his back. Then the light died, me and the former captive standing on opposite sides of the doomed man.

"You were one brave fuck before. Really bad-ass. Th' chains, th' gauge, th' badge." As Johns spun, trying to pinpoint Riddick by his voice, the small piece of shiny metal fell off his battered shirt pocket. "Ya shoulda ghosted me."

A big critter approached, and the merc fired blindly. But only the first shot echoed; nothing happened with the second.

He'd loaded a morphine shell.

_Damn stupid place to hide your drugs, for someone in your line of work._

The moment of shock and hesitation was all that the creature needed. Bony-looking spikes rammed through his torso, then the razor-lined jaw opened wide, and the head whipped down. One crunch, and Johns' entire head and most of his neck went down the alien's throat. Watching it hunch over the rest of its meal and smack others away with its tail nearly made me puke—or would have, if there had been anything besides water in my stomach.

My animal side suddenly screeched a warning in my head, snapping my focus over to the man who'd been growing more and more important to me. An even larger beast loomed behind him, and somehow Riddick hadn't sensed it. My reaction was automatic and instantaneous: sheath both blades, grab the barrel of my rifle with the left hand, pull it around and switch hands, slap the left on the stock, brace against my shoulder, flip the selector from 'safety' to 'single fire,' and squeeze. It took maybe five seconds.

The hollow-point round hit the creature's head dead center. The bulbous protrusions landed a good two meters to either side, while the bottom section of the sickle-shape dropped straight down. The rest, apparently still attached to the body, snapped back with enough force to flip the corpse onto its back. I lowered my firearm with hands that shook as I put the safety back on. The beasts around us barely moved, not making a single sound.

The convict used two fingers to wipe a glob of the alien's blood off his shoulder, sniffing at it and wrinkling his nose before flicking the thick substance away.

"Hemocyanin. Copper-based." He glanced at me. "Adapted for low-oxygen environments." I nodded, and we moved back toward the sled and the now-feebly flickering generator. Shazza lit another bottle, having passed torches to the other three, and the fiberoptics died with a whine.

"What happened?" Jack's wide eyes glimmered with a threat of tears.

"Johns, the motherfucking, lazy-ass, scheming bastard, will not be rejoining us this evening." I couldn't help the smirk. "Or any other." The girl nodded at me and sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

"Don't you cry for him." Riddick seemed to misinterpret the action. "Don't you dare."

"I'm _not_." The snappish retort brought a raised eyebrow from him. "I was worried something would get one of _you_ two." Then she pulled the coil of plastic over her head, dropped it on the ground, and started pushing at the useless generator. In the end, it took both the men to topple the thing and roll it away from the sled, but Fry and Abu seemed to need less effort to get the heart of our little caravan going again.

Still, our pace was more than slow enough for the gruesome natives to wear us down with attacks and eventually get one or more of us. As we moved, I wracked my brain, coming up with alternatives. But I discarded most of them as either impractical or too dangerous. The 'Eureka!' moment came just as we entered the canyon.

"Let's stop for a minute, catch our breath so we can get through here at speed." With nods of agreement, the pilot and priest pulled into a slight indentation in the cliff face, not quite deep enough to be considered even a shallow cave. Crouching, I went ahead and outlined my idea. "These cells mass about thirty-five kilos apiece, right?" Fry nodded. "And we've got the sled cables and some cord…" I turned to the convict. "If you don't mind playing beast of burden one more time, we could tie the cells together and tow them the rest of the way, without the sled. Each of them carry a spare bottle of booze on their belts, around their necks, maybe?" He grunted and started untying the nearest length of heavy nylon. "I'll take point, and he'll have the rear. Then we run like hell."

"But there's only eight bottles." Jack frowned at me. "How are you gonna lead without a good light?" She had a point, or would if I were normal, and I looked down at the flashlight on my chest. Its beam had gotten rather faint.

"For one thing, this canyon doesn't branch." I held up one finger, then raised a second. "_And_ I could have switched places with Riddick any time without an issue." That drew curious stares, so I raised a hand to block as much of the alcohol torches' light as I could. The kid made an interested sound as I felt my eyes shift. The pilot scowled and opened her mouth, but I preempted her. "Been like this as long as I can remember. So shall we do this thing, get off this _lovely_ little piece of real estate?"

In wordless response, the bushwhacker held out a hand, and I gave her what cording I had left over from making the flashlight harnesses. She and the girl tackled the spare alcohol torches while Fry huddled at the base of the cliff, curled into the smallest ball she could manage. The holy man knelt, head bowed and lips moving in prayer. I joined the big guy, partly so that my hands would be occupied, and partly to satisfy my feral side's desire to be near him.

It felt strange, but right at the same time. The inner beast calmed every time we were close… Well, except when she wanted to jump his bones.

"Shall we pray together?" I ignored Abu, yanking the last knot tight. "I have already prayed with the others." Still, neither of us responded. "It is painless."

"It's pointless." A world of pain and resentment filled Riddick's voice.

"Just because you do not believe in God does not mean God does not believe in—"

"Got it all wrong, holy man. 'Cause you don't spend half your life in lock-down with a horse-bit in your mouth an' not believe." He vibrated with tension, and I rested a hand on his arm. "An' you _surely_ don't start out in a liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped 'round your throat an' not believe." So that was where Johns' vile little nickname had come from. I'd already started to think that our similarities were more than coincidence; if he came from the same people as my birth mother, I suspected that the hunters had caught his mother and tried to kill him as well, either ripping him from her womb or within minutes of his birth. When I found out who had killed our biological parents, I swore to myself that I'd tear them apart with my bare hands. "Oh, I absolutely believe in God. An' I absolutely _hate_ th' fucker." The dark-skinned man turned his gaze to me.

"I've read your Qur'an, and the Bible, too. Your God is supposed to be benevolent and merciful to good people, but I've seen too much evil, too many of those good people hurt or killed for no reason." I stopped there, not wanting to go into a rant. Abu chose that moment to interrupt.

"It is true, that many use His gift of free will to do evil, but would you rather He strip away that freedom from all of us to keep suffering from happening?" He shook his head. "Those victims may have suffered, but they are in heaven now, abiding with Him forever. And for the wicked, His vengeance shall come; He sends His shepherds to stop the wicked and send them to the depths of hell they deserve." He glanced pointedly at Riddick.

"If your God actually gave a _shit_ about folks," I countered. "He wouldn't let those things happen, and He _certainly_ wouldn't allow an entire culture to be hunted down and exterminated, wouldn't force a woman to leave her days-old child with strangers to protect it, wouldn't have children grow up in isolation from others because of abilities they don't understand. But He does, so I want nothing to do with Him."

The imam bowed his head, acknowledging that we had good points, and moved away, murmuring under his breath. Probably praying for us anyway.

"Orphaned?" Riddick sat down and leaned against the cliff. I nodded as I joined him, but something compelled me to elaborate.

"All I have from my biological mother is a brief, vague letter and the blanket she wrapped me in before she left me. My adoptive parents never even saw her." I sighed. "She said someone was hunting our kin, our people, but she didn't know why. Knew she'd be dead soon, too; left me behind to keep them from finding me."

Quiet settled on us; my throat tightened and my eyes burned with tears that I refused to let fall. I'd been the more fortunate of us, given a home with adults who had tried to be supportive, at the very least. The convict had been at the mercy of an inept and corrupt bureaucracy from day one. Soundlessly, he shifted, an arm moving behind me, and I was upset enough from recalling my true mother's only words to me that I just leaned against his side. A broad, warm hand settled on my hip, bringing even more comfort than the simple, undemanding physical contact.

We stayed that way until it was time to move on, the alien beasts whooping and whistling as they sailed through the skies above us.


	9. Chapter 9

Wow. Here we are already, the final chapter of Faint Premonition. Of course, this isn't the end, not by a long shot. Next up is A Matter of Instinct, which will start posting next Wednesday and stay on the same weekly schedule. After that, there's at least four 'interim' stories, and maybe more - I just had an idea today that you'll find out about when we get there. *smirks* Much thanks to BlueEyedPisces and QuietStorm Aka Narusake-Koi for your reviews. And a heartfelt welcome to the series for sgtpep93 (*salutes*) and celticshannon. Read, enjoy, and please review!

**Faint Premonition**

A _Pitch Black_ Alternate Universe

**Chapter Nine**

Emergency Skiff

(Zeke)

"Any sign of them, old boy?" Zeke rubbed at his left elbow, half trying to get at an itch just under the dressing, then looked at Paris over his shoulder. The merchant quivered nervously.

"Nothin' since th' shots. An' the last one had t' be Bergenhaus—it sounded different from Johns' gauge." He hoped to hell his Shazza was all right. Without 'er, he was worth less than nothin'.

"They _are_ hauling at least a hundred and forty kilos." The doc had a point; it was a lot of mass, even if they had all the adults pulling, which was both impractical and unlikely. God only knew where they'd been when the eclipse began, how far they needed to come on foot.

The prospector nodded, acknowledging Sean's comment, and then looked at the three boys. They sat side-by-side in the skiff's jump seats, murmuring in unison under th' bright light. The holy man had said their uncle was some kinda 'very important man,' but their actions were full of humility, not wealth or status.

Like Sharon; her old man might be a trillionaire, but that affected her behavior not at all. It was part of why he loved her as much as he did.

Zeke stared back out into th' darkness, propped up against one side of the hatch. They had t' make it outta this, though th' merc could die for all he cared. Twelve of 'em, a round dozen, would just fit inside the craft, though it'd get stuffy an' cramped if they were in it for long. Wordlessly, he added his own prayer to th' boys' chanting.

Canyon

(Eileen)

Rested up, we formed a line for the run. Jack had a firm hold on my belt and would act as my speedometer, as she was just barely the shortest of us. Shazza held her other hand, a torch grasped between them, Fry and Abu following in the same manner. Riddick shrugged, settling the harness around his torso, and lowered his shades. I worried about the others to various degrees, but not him; simply by being there, he proved that he could take care of himself.

I glanced warily at the creatures lining the cliff tops, sure they'd attack pretty much anything that moved at this point. The air above seethed with swooping forms darting at each other. Occasionally, they'd connect, but for the most part they rolled away from each other's tails and talons at the far end of my visual range.

"Don't look up." Somebody squeaked when the instruction came in harmonic stereo surround sound. I'd have put money on the pilot.

"Move!" I darted forward carefully, gauging the pace by the tension around my middle. The whooping and clicking intensified, the beasts anticipating a fresh meal. My breathing thundered in my ears as I fought for every molecule of oxygen.

Then the meaty impacts echoed down, followed swiftly by bits of gore. I could feel it in my hair, dribbling down my face, but stayed focused. At least my night-sight's tendency to mute colors—more so the darker it got—spared me some of the detail. My nose easily made up the difference, picking up rotting meat, probably half-digested, and the pungently coppery scent of the aliens' blood.

The ground retained the odor because it had been steeped in the ichor for one year out of every twenty-two as the gruesome creatures—I abruptly decided 'grues' would be less of a mouthful—slaughtered themselves. This was one fucked-up little planet. I'd make sure it got interdicted, maybe with a patrol ship or two to help any future stranded vessels.

The carnage only increased as we got further into the canyon. I couldn't tell how far away the fallen ribcage might be, let alone the settlement. How much longer could we keep running? I could hear a rasp in someone's breathing.

And then the first drops of rain fell, hissing as they touched open flames. No gradual increase in intensity; moments later, we ran through a downpour. The ever-growing carpet of grue bits turned into a muddy, slippery stew, making progress even more difficult.

One small misstep stopped us all, even Riddick. Shazza went down _hard_, bringing the girl and the blonde with her. The violent tug on my belt had me pinwheeling my arms, trying to stay upright as the imam's momentum landed him atop the others. The convict stopped just short of the pile, the power cells nearly knocking his feet out from under him.

And when the bushwhacker tried to get up, one leg refused to support her. I knelt beside her and felt at the ankle. It wasn't broken, fortunately, but it was badly sprained.

"She's not going much further under her own power." Looking around, I saw a crevice in the canyon wall just big enough for a person to squeeze through. With the probability that a river had once flowed where we stood, there might be a cave on the other side, which would make it defensible. As long as that was the only exit, at least.

"Leave." The brunette put on a brave face that didn't quite cover her despair. "You lot get outta here. Just… keep Zeke safe for me, please?"

"I'll be damned if I abandon _anyone_ here!" The words completely bypassed the filter between my instincts and my mouth.

"He'd try to come after you anyway, even if you were already… gone by the time we told him." Jack swallowed hard before continuing, her voice quavering. "I won't lose you both like that!" The boyish pitch cracked, then disappeared entirely.

"You… you're a girl!" Fry looked completely shocked.

"What does that matter now?" A mulish expression settled on the youthful face. "What's important is how we're gonna get _all_ of us _and_ the cells to the skiff."

"Two trips." Abu paused. "If there is somewhere secure nearby where we can take shelter…?" I nodded slightly. "Then we make one trip to take the power cells to the settlement. Dr. O'Connell can wire them to the one that is already there, while a second trip returns to carry Ms. Montgomery."

"Not 'we.'" Attention turned to Riddick. "_Me_." I watched comprehension dawn on the girl's face while the other two standing adults sputtered protests.

"He's right. Both groups _must_ be capable of defending themselves." The argument stopped, brown and gray eyes focusing on me. "Hauling those cells, he won't be able to move quickly enough if someone with him is attacked. If _I_ don't stay _here_, this group remains really vulnerable, cave or no cave."

Unable to refute my logic, the pair grudgingly helped Shazza limp toward the crevice I pointed out. A few beats later, Jack gave me an odd look and followed, giving me a so far very rare moment alone with a man who was rapidly becoming an obsession for me. I leaned into his solid, warm presence, sighing as his hands moved up and down my sides, smoothing over the soaked fabric of my tank top. My hand on the back of his neck drew him down for a hard, almost desperate kiss.

"Hurry." I didn't even try to disguise the pleading in my voice. My feral side didn't want to be away from him at all, but its need to protect Jack was equally strong.

"Doin' this for you an' th' girl." The growl sounded more frustrated than angry. "Not for th' rest of 'em." Even as I nodded, he pulled me onto my tiptoes to receive a lingering, almost tender kiss. Riddick backed away slowly, fingers trailing along my arm and briefly tangling with my own before he bent to retrieve the cable harness.

Once I'd joined the others in the cave, he muscled a large rock over the entrance, sealing us inside. It was a tight fit for four adults and an adolescent. Fry began to freak out about the boulder that was now our 'door.'

"Will you _shut up_?" My words came out a little more sharply than I'd intended. She turned to face me, eyes wide. "It's not to keep us _in_, it's to keep those gruesome things _out_." She huddled in on herself, and I refocused. "How do we stand on light?"

The tally came to six broken bottles and two half-full ones. To make it last as long as possible, one was emptied into the other, even squeezing the liquid out of the second torch's wick. Then we crowded around the small flame, anxiously waiting for our reluctant savior to return.

Canyon

(Riddick)

I grind my teeth on th' breather. Takin' in as much O2 as it c'n put out. Legs're goin' like one'a them old internal combustion engines. Can't let the fuckin' dead weight of th' cells get bogged down in th' mud an' carrion. I barely got 'em goin' outside th' cave.

Th' cave. Eileen. Can't— _won't_ let her down. Gotta get her an' th' kid outta this insanity. Half batshit with wantin' her, an' it's one helluva feelin'. Ain't never wanted a woman, let alone a specific one, as bad as I want her.

I weave through what's left of th' ribcage that was clipped by the 'Cat, straight through a new waterin' hole, an' up the slope outta th' fuckin' canyon. Footing's bad, an' I nearly go face-first down th' other side. Gives th' cells more momentum, though, an' I fly past a bunch of aliens snappin' at each other.

I skid to a stop at th' bottom of th' shitty little skiff's ramp, an' the bushwhacker starts lookin' around. Doc's got a bit more sense, grabs a power cell.

"Your woman sprained her ankle." Man don't look very happy as I lean over, hands on my knees. Another breather enters my sight; one'a th' holy man's boys offerin' me his. "Goin' back for 'em."

"Here." Th' little bald guy shoves his breather into my hands. "You've done more than any of the rest of us." I take it, mostly 'cause th' idiot don't look like he's gonna back down. It'd be a waste of my time t' kill him, in any case.

Fuckin' gratitude's uncomfortable, so I take off. More'n time I got back to Eileen anyways. I ain't leavin' her behind… don't wanna be anywhere but with her.

Goddamn woman, drivin' me insane.

Cave

(Eileen)

The flame dimmed as the alcohol in the bottle dwindled. Jack had fitted herself snugly against my side shortly after Riddick left, shivering, and I'd put my arm around her. Between being soaked and having the aliens whistling, whooping, and clicking outside, the atmosphere had grown tense. At least they hadn't started working the boulder away from the cliff face… yet.

We'd both tucked our legs up, knees to our chests, to give Shazza room enough to keep her injured leg extended. She put no pressure on the ankle, but still grimaced in pain, jaw muscles bunching rhythmically. Abu crouched between her and the girl, adding a ceaseless murmur to the other noises. And Fry sat clear across the cave, as far from me as she could possibly get. She would glance at me, then look away, adding fear to the other scents she exuded. Justified fear, though, because I was just barely restraining myself, ready to lash out physically.

The flame shrank, going from orange to blue, then vanished entirely with a little 'phut!' My hand lights were already dead, and the grues seemed to sense, somehow, that we were now in darkness. The semi-hollow clunking that I'd guessed was bony heads knocking together intensified.

Jack gasped suddenly, and I followed her gaze upwards. I'd noticed the small slugs on the ceiling earlier, and now they glowed with a gentle blue light. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism against the hammerheads outside, to keep them from being gobbled up. Ironic, as I could just make out four protrusions on one end of each larva, and two on the other; left alone, they'd probably become grues themselves.

With a grin, the young girl uncapped the bottle we'd emptied earlier and began plucking the little creatures off the walls. The mouth was just wide enough for her to push them inside. The imam quickly joined the effort. Within a few minutes, it was full, and Shazza took possession for the container to scrape away the label.

Jack stood on the holy man's shoulders to get the last few larvae as I waited anxiously, ready to catch her if she fell. The second bottle ended up about two-thirds full, and it joined the other in the center of the cave floor. The sounds of fighting outside faded, and then something thumped as the boulder rocked a little. The girl clutched at the straps attached to my back-plate when it happened again, and I carefully drew my daggers at the third impact.

The stone moved to one side of the entrance, but slowly, perhaps a centimeter at a time. A talon tried to get inside, the opening too narrow. It drew back, and then I heard a grunt— a _human_ grunt.

Pressing my face against the gap, I could see Riddick. He held the arms of a grue about his size, his hands below its wrists. It snapped at him, but couldn't reach far enough to actually connect. It paused, seeming to evaluate its strange but powerful adversary.

Quick as a lightning strike, the convict released one arm, drew a swingblade, and struck at the creature's abdomen. Entrails spilled into the mud as it collapsed, and the human moved to straddle its neck behind the head. Grasping the horizontal protrusions of its skull, he twisted. A dull crunch ended the beast's feeble struggles.

"Did _not_ know who he was fuckin' with." Riddick spat on the corpse, then turned toward the cave. I backed up a little as he wrestled the makeshift 'door' out of the way, then flashed him an appreciative smile. One side of his mouth twitched upwards, followed by an eyebrow as he spotted our larvae lamps.

Shazza was unceremoniously tossed over his shoulder as the rest of us lined up. It was still pouring rain, but the grisly shower of carrion seemed to have stopped for the time being. Perhaps the initial bloodlust had been sated. I wasn't going to count on it.

We set out at a trot, the free settler looking supremely uncomfortable as she bounced with every step. God knew the convict had huge arms and shoulders. Jack and Fry, fourth and second in line, respectively, carried our lights, which were a gentler blue than the fiberoptics had been. They didn't force my eyes to change completely when I looked at them.

No one spoke as we moved through the canyon. The freshly broken bones went by, sending a frission of anticipation, relief, fear, and worry through me. By my best guesstimate, it would take between five and ten minutes to get to the tarmac.

The pace increased a bit as we splashed through a shallow pond, startling grues that had been drinking at its edges. A narrow gap between two groups of the creatures became our escape route. I heard them whistle and click rapidly, but we got far enough ahead to deter pursuit.

The end of the canyon looked completely different from its suns-lit state. Chunks of meat and even whole corpses carpeted the slope, but Riddick scrambled up the pile without hesitation. The pilot and the imam paused.

"What _is_ this?" The holy man was probably talking to himself, but we all heard.

"It's a fuckin' staircase! Now _climb_!" The instruction came in a parade-ground bellow that the others obeyed almost immediately.

"Ick, ick, ick…" The young girl in front of me had opted to use her hands to help her climb, in addition to her feet. I didn't blame her; she was probably in the middle of a growth spurt, all arms and legs and inevitably clumsy.

The gore gave way to actual ground, turned into slippery mud by the rain. The convict stayed on his feet as he half-slid down the slope toward the settlement. The rest of us chose to go down on our butts instead of risking another fall. For some damn reason, Fry handed her light to Abu at the bottom and took off, headed for the faint but visible glow of the skiff's lights. I swore under my breath and pelted after her, Jack just managing to match my pace.

Riddick, Shazza, and al-Walid must have taken a different route, disappearing from sight quickly. Our path twisted and turned, and the moment light could be seen between buildings, the pilot put on an extra burst of speed, leaving me and the kid to bring up the rear.

The scene that awaited us on the tarmac got me upset right off the bat. Oh, Zeke holding his wife as tightly as he could and the imam speaking to his charges in rapid Arabic was fine by me. The control couch sliding forward with a 'thump' was not.

Because Riddick, _my_ Riddick, was nowhere to be found. I hesitated. When and why did I decide that he belonged to me? Then I shook off the thought.

"Where is he?" My terse question came out plenty loud enough for them all to hear. The brunette looked at the dark-skinned man, then turned to me with downcast eyes.

"One of those big 'uns jumped us." She spoke quietly, subdued. "He told us t' keep goin' while 'e kept its attention on 'im."

"Dammit!" It was a surprisingly selfless action for the escaped convict. A hum began, the engines under each wing starting to glow. "Carolyn Fry!" She didn't seem to hear me at all, continuing the run-up on the main drives. "Docking pilot, power down _now_! That is an _order_!"

Everyone jumped at my bellow, but I got the reaction I wanted. The hum died, and I stormed into the skiff, pulling the handle that would release the pilot's seat and move it away from the console. One hand grabbed her right arm, and I hauled her to her feet.

"You spineless little bitch." I snarled at her, our faces only a few centimeters apart. "I wish _you'd_ died and _Owens_ had lived." She flinched and deflated at that, shoulders slumping. I grabbed the full bottle of larvae, dragging the woman with me. "Which direction did you come from, Shazza?"

"There." The prospector and heiress pointed at a dark gap between converted cargo containers. "Not too far back, but there's some turns between here and there." I nodded my thanks and headed that way, forcing the blonde to come with me. The rain made it difficult to follow the scent trail, but the incense that clung to Abu lingered enough to guide me.

I scented him as we approached a T-intersection. He'd been cut, injured, undoubtedly by a grue. The knowledge pissed me off.

At that moment, my animal side subsumed my civilized mind— not that it put up much fight— and went into what I can only describe as a blood rage. I shoved the light at Fry and pulled Sinistra and Dextra from their sheathes, the blades vibrating faintly in my grip and producing a ringing at the edge of my hearing. Then I charged around the corner, yelling at the top of my lungs.

Riddick had managed to get himself well and truly boxed in by a pair of massive grues, their heads nearly as wide and tall as his entire body. One lurked at each end of the narrow section of alley, clicking madly. His hands hung limply, stained with his own blood; I could see the swingblades in the mud and a large tear in one pants leg. He'd shifted most of his weight onto the other side.

Furious that these filthy _beasts_ had hurt _my_ Riddick, I dodged a whipping tail, sliced it to the bone, and leapt onto the nearest grue's back. It thrashed about, squealing and trying to shake me off in any way possible. But I clung like a limpet, slowly moving toward its shoulders.

A deft flick of my wrists and brief opening of my hands reversed the direction of my daggers. Crossing my arms above the creature's neck so that the edges faced each other, I plunged them downwards and began to close them about the vulnerable column of flesh like a giant pair of scissors. Thick ichor welled up around each blade, driving the beast into more panicked movement, but each jerk served me instead, deepening the cuts. Suddenly, the oozing on the right side turned into spurting, and the grue sank to the ground. I yanked the twinned daggers out, set their backs together, and drove them into the middle of the alien's neck. They glanced off bone, then went in hilt-deep.

With one last, weak keen, the hammer-headed creature stilled, the ribcage beneath me going a bit flat as its last breath whooshed out. The night went very, very quiet as the shriek echoed through the settlement and beyond.

I glanced back, the animal in me retreating to let the human side take over again, and saw Fry plastered against the corner I'd come around, the ghostly blue glow of the larvae making her eyes look even wider with fear than they'd been before. Ahead, the remaining beast had taken to the flat roof of a building, cautiously moving closer. But I was more concerned about the injured man who'd collapsed during my fight, lying on his side in the thin layer of mud.

I dipped momentarily as I approached, scooping up his set of matched blades and hooking them through my belt. Kneeling, I struggled to right him, despite the fact that he massed far more than I did. Even once I had him sitting up, I had to lean against him to keep him that way, stroking his scalp gently.

"Eileen?" His voice was a pained whisper.

"I'm here, babe, right here." I looked up at the pilot, who hadn't moved. "Dammit, Fry, get your ass over here and _help_!" Whimpering, she obeyed my hissed order, sliding along the wall with her gaze fixed on the corpse. Once she'd gotten past it, she scrambled, pulling futilely on Riddick's other arm.

"Get up, get up, get up!" I added a slight nudge to her panicky chant, and he slowly struggled to his feet. Both of us tried to support him, me ducking beneath his arm the moment there was enough room. Staggering around the dead grue, I kept a wary eye on the living one that crept along the roof's edge, tracking the movement of its former prey and the creatures all but dragging it away. When we reached the intersection, it pounced on the carcass, ripping into it in a display of gleeful cannibalism.

Hauling somewhere near a hundred kilos of injured, limping male made the trip back to the tarmac and skiff seem twice as long. Nor did it help that the blonde's period attracted a crowd of smaller aliens. As we approached the last turn, one got bold enough to swoop down and make a pass at her. Fry grunted quietly, and I smelled fresh blood; the thing had hit its mark. Still, she kept moving.

Once we got up the ramp and into the small ship, the pilot darted toward the controls, leaving me to steer the convict into a seat as he crumpled. Jack held out the open med-kit as the hatch closed, and I gave her a slight smile as I grabbed a small packet of antiseptic wipes.

The engines roared to life as I concentrated on cleaning Riddick's hands to inspect the damage. Everyone not seated swayed as the skiff lifted off, and the gravitic forces I felt told me that Fry had chosen a pretty steep ascent. Irregular thumps made the vessel shiver, probably airborne grues in our path.

The big guy's hands, apparently punctured straight through his palms, had already healed visibly and would be fine with simple dressings. The gash on his legs, where his pants had been shredded, would need stitches; the peculiar bulge beneath it, however, needed investigating first. He didn't make a sound as I probed with a pair of forceps salvaged from the geologists' medical supplies. Finally, they caught hold of a hard object, and I withdrew a large, dark triangle— a tooth from whichever creature had managed to get him.

All of the vibrations and exterior noise faded as I tied careful knots with purloined sutures and a needle. The twin-ringed gas giant loomed in front of the skiff in a deceptively beautiful vista, its edges gilded by the binary suns.

"Gonna be a lotta questions, whoever picks us up." The girl's quiet statement made me raise an eyebrow. "Could even be mercs. So whadda we tell 'em 'bout you?" She had a good point, with Riddick a potential target for anyone who wanted to make a bundle and felt like they were macho enough to take him on.

"Tell 'em…" He shifted next to me, far more alert than he'd been when we took off. "Tell 'em Riddick died, somewhere back on that planet." Stunned silence followed the answer. Feigning a re-examination of his hand, I ran my thumbs over his broad palm. He gave me the smallest of smiles, letting me know that he understood the truth behind the gesture.

"Reached the shippin' lane." The pilot's voice sounded faint and strained when she spoke after a few minutes of silence. "Act'vatin' 'stress bea… c'n…" As she trailed off, Sean jumped up and pulled the seat release. The blonde woman nearly tumbled out of the couch, limp as a wet dishrag. The priest helped the astrophysicist move her to the small section of decking not already occupied, and I crouched next to her unconscious form.

Nothing showed on her front, so I carefully rolled her onto one side. A ten-centimeter tear had been made in her dark blue shipsuit near her right kidney, the blood nearly blending into the fabric. Once the shirt was cut away— I left her bra intact, so the holy man would have no room to complain about indecent exposure— an already-swollen puncture wound oozed nastily, little black tendrils radiating from it under her skin. I dug into Sergeant Drift's kit again, extracting two hypodermic needles.

"Looks like those suckers had venom." Most of the English speakers started talking at the same time. I injected the broad-spectrum antibiotic and general antivenin, then held up a hand for silence and got it. "Zeke got immediate treatment, and the coagulant would have kept any venom from spreading. As for Riddick…" I shot him a wry look. "God only knows what all the prison system's exposed him to, what his system resists these days."

That seemed to settle the questions. I bound a gauze pad lightly over Fry's back and covered her with a blanket that Suleiman offered. I'd done what I could for her; we could only wait for our ride back to civilization.


End file.
